i found one of these, it looked cool with the flip down plastic and all. i cant find any info on it. is it a good player?

i have only quickly plugged it in and it was making a weird popping sound through the speakers so i shut her down, i ll investigate a bit later.

"it was free" so im just wondering if its worth trying to fix or not. i could use a good cassette deck.

looks like this

I got one of those when they first came out. When new, this deck was capable of making some very fine sounding cassettes. This, I believe, was Pioneer's first front loader. Before this model, all machines were top loaders. As such, it really resembles a top loader more than a front loader, mechanically. The cassette is at a 30 degree tilt and uses the same mechanical linkage from front panel controls to the transport as top loaders. No solenoids here. I feel the angled cassette is its greatest downfall. Cassettes work much better when vertically oriented. If there is any friction in the cassette housing (such as a slightly worn cassette), then there is substantial drag on the hub due to the weight of the tape against the housing. Also, if I recall correctly, the spindles only have one "spoke" as opposed to most other machines with three or even six. This allowed a looser coupling between hub and spindle leading to a rather uneven spinning of the reels inside the cassette housing.

When it worked, it worked great. But I had so many troubles with mine eating tapes due to the poor winding that mine is now boxed up in its original box in the garage. Looks pristine except it has one dead bulb in the cassette hole.

I have two of those. I've not had them long but already they have staked out a place in my heart. Really sweet sounding especially with well recorded tapes.

Here's mine....

http://www.arcticcorsair.f9.co.uk/misc/PioTapes.jpg

There are better machines around than these but for a freebie, if you can get it going again it will be a lovely thing to have.