Question:
Cassette player sounds speeded up.?
Author Gavin
2019-06-07 09:48:35 UTC
I have a Steepletone Music Centre that Ive had for a few years & is probably out of guarantee. Recently I transferred a few vinyl albums to cassette tape. ,when I played them back , the sound wasn't quite chipmunk, but sounded a little speeded up. Not technically minded but is there much I can do without finding a repair shop for cassette players, !
Three answers:
Lord Bacon
2019-06-07 10:05:02 UTC
The cassette tape is fed past the record/playback head at a constant speed by a rubber 'pinch' roller that pushes the tape against a revolving metal spindle. The surfaces can get dirty over time and a bit slippery. This allows the take-up spool to pull the tape through at a faster speed which will tend to make the sound 'wobbly' or a bit towards the 'chipmunk' sound you mentioned.



It might help to clean the surface of the rubber pinch roller and the spindle to remove any surface glazing or marks. I'd use a cotton bud dipped in isopropyl alcohol which I have for cleaning vinyl LPs and stylii, but I am sure you can find something else that will help - maybe just the corner of a tissue soaked in warm water.



No promises that this will solve your problem but it is something I used to come across when I used cassette tapes. If this was the problem, I would have expected it to have affected the recoding as well so I have my doubts, but it is a worthwhile bit of maintenance anyway.



Another possibility is that the cassette tape you used had not been wound through for a long time and created extra drag so that the actual recording was too slow. Now you've used the tape to record the music, it runs more freely so it plays back at the proper speed, making the playback sound 'chipmunk'.



If that is the case, you will have to re-record the vinyl albums on cassettes that have been run-through recently.



Just a couple of ideas. Hope you solve the problem.
spacemissing
2019-06-07 10:03:50 UTC
The most common cause of increased speed in a cassette machine

is a piece of an "eaten" tape wrapped around the capstan.



Otherwise, look for a problem associated with the motor.





Audio repair shops are fairly common. Find one near you.
Land-shark
2019-06-07 09:51:13 UTC
Possibly the drive belt has come off one of the small pulleys inside? But I had one die when the resistor which tuned the speed precisely failed.


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
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