Is there an easy at home way to determine if a cassette deck is operating at the correct speed? I have 3 decks now: Pioneer CT-F755 single, Kenwood KX-CW66 dual, and a LXI (sanyo) dual. I think the Kenwood may be fast, I think the LXI may be a little slow, but the Pioneer seems pretty close.

Is there any easy way to test the decks to determine if any of them are playing at the correct speed?

Unless you have a keen ear for pitch and KNOW that you have a cassette that was recorded at the correct speed, you are hosed.

Most decks come from the factory set at about 0.5% fast, but they all can drift around, (and they may have been serviced in their lifetimes and had the speed set or changed.)

Reminds me of the old adage, "A man with one watch always knows what time it is. A man with two is never sure."

The only foolproof way to verify speed is to use a test-tape with either a wow/flutter meter or a frequency counter.

Okay, sounds like I'm hosed :o. I could always just use the one that sounds best to me, and since I don't share tapes with anyone else, should not be a big deal then.

Test tone tapes are out there, maybe on the 'Bay? One and freq meter will tell you in a few seconds.

I record a tuned guitar's "a" string through the mic input at about 0db,hitting the note every couple of seconds and let it sustain.Then i play the recording back from the headphone jack into the guitar tuner and see how close the pitch is.

i guess you'll need a guiter,tuner and a couple of patch courds but thats how i determine the tape speed.


cheers

Although the "proper" way to test and adjust a deck's speed is using a reference tape with a tone and measure the output tone with a frequency meter, there is no real reason why a stroboscope could not be used. The same way like with a TT.

Here is a nice little thingy I found on ebay a few months ago.

It's a stroboscope cassette for two speeds - 1 7/8 and 3 3/4 ips. It also contains a test tone as seen on the label.

What I don't know is whether the specs are decent. The test tone is set to 6.3kHz with an error of 2%. And the stroboscope disk is rated for a margin of less than 1.5%.

That cassette showed my two available decks at the time spinning a bit slower than normal. I didn't pursue the matter further. I need to make a session with my 3-4 test tapes, the frequency meter and PC with similar s/w available.

But I just liked the novelty of a strobe disk for a cassette deck.

Although the "proper" way to test and adjust a deck's speed is using a reference tape with a tone and measure the output tone with a frequency meter, there is no real reason why a stroboscope could not be used. The same way like with a TT.

Here is a nice little thingy I found on ebay a few months ago.

It's a stroboscope cassette for two speeds - 1 7/8 and 3 3/4 ips. It also contains a test tone as seen on the label.

What I don't know is whether the specs are decent. The test tone is set to 6.3kHz with an error of 2%. And the stroboscope disk is rated for a margin of less than 1.5%.

That cassette showed my two available decks at the time spinning a bit slower than normal. I didn't pursue the matter further. I need to make a session with my 3-4 test tapes, the frequency meter and PC with similar s/w available.

But I just liked the novelty of a strobe disk for a cassette deck.
Unless the strobe disk is driven by the capstan (I can't tell) it will be of little use...

Enjoy,
Rich P

I usually adjusted the deck purely by ear. When I purchased my Nakamichi LX-3 it was really off, although I think it is about right now. I use a cassette where I am very familiar with the music and adjust until it sounds right to me.

Thanks for all the input guys. Right now, the Pioneer is my main deck and it seems to be working just fine. I'll look into some of your suggestions and see if I might be able to adjust the others.

Thanks again!

This might not be possible for you, but I have pre-recorded cassettes and then play them alongside a digital version on the computer and can from that figure out if it is fast or slow based on how it comes out of sync.

Yeah, that might work. I was actually gonna try and record a metronome beat - maybe 60bpm - from either one of my keyboards or audio recording programs and then play back cassette output of that same beat to my computer and use one of my audio programs to measure first beat to last beat and see how close it comes to 60bpm. Then I can try that same tape in all 3 decks and compare how fast/slow they are to each other. Sounds more complicated than it might be worth though...

Actually, after thinking about it - isn't speed difference only noticeable if I move tapes between decks? If I record something on the slow deck and then play back on the slow deck, wouldn't that still play back at the same speed as the original source? I would think the same would hold true for a fast deck. Does that sound right to you guys?

I never thought about this problem until I had begun dubbing copies of several tapes and discovered that the pitch and speeds of all of the songs were being changed, because the player and recorder tape transports in the Kenwood dual cassette recorder I had ran at quite different speeds. I discovered that a dual cassette Sony also had two different speeds between its two units, too, but much less.

Now how did I quantify the difference, you ask? I played the same song on each one and timed it with a stop watch. The song was "Secret Agent Man" by Johnny Rivers. It was at least 3 1/2 minutes long. On the Kenwood, there was several seconds difference between its two drives! It was about a second on the Sony.

There ought to be a better way to check it. But I guess you could use any song or program. Don't go by the seconds listed in the album notes. Time it for yourself using the same method for each transport or machine you are checking. You don't know how much lead-in or lead-out silence might be in the time published in the notes, besides it could be a misprint.

My method only gives you relative times between tape drive units, not whether any one of them is actually accurate. But relativity has some importance.

Stopwatching a song is an indication - of course - but it is tedious and not precise.

The usual way to measure the speed of the deck and correct it is to use a test tape with a reference tone recorded on a reference machine and measure the frequency of the tone with a calibrated frequecy meter. Cheap multimeters that offer a frequency meter are a shot in the dark. They may offer decent accuracy or not. A 3~5% measurement error is totaly unacceptable for setting the deck's speed but not unacceptable for several other applications.

Another exact way of adjusting a deck would be to use a tape of exactly known length and count the seconds it takes to travel from spool to spool with a stopwatch. Each run gives feedback on whether the speed needs to slow down or increase.

This is not really a recommended way of measuring and adjusting decks for a living. More like a way to adjust and verify the reference deck.

Which brings the issue of how to measure the length of the tape inside a cassette - doesn't it?

I like the idea of taking a pre-recorded tape and playing it alongside the digital version. That should surely get one in the ballpark.

That strobe tape is WAY cool! I'd like to see that.

I like the idea of taking a pre-recorded tape and playing it alongside the digital version. That should surely get one in the ballpark.

That strobe tape is WAY cool! I'd like to see that.

Well, if you find the strobo-cassette cool, have a look at this one: A torque measurement cassette.

It has no less than 5 gauges: One per face, one on top and one at each edge. This one along with a Sony DAT Torque meter cassette saved me countless hours while I restored DAT decks and adjusted the pinch roller pressure and back tension on a Revox B710 deck.

Ugh. Double post. Where is the freakin' TRASH icon??

Wow, that's a cool torque tape. I couldn't do deck service without mine. The top one does running torques during playback, and the bottom one shows FF/REW torque.

I've got torque tapes for Beta, 8 and VHS, but not for DAT.

Couldn't live without them.

Wow, that's a cool torque tape. I couldn't do deck service without mine. The top one does running torques during playback, and the bottom one shows FF/REW torque.

I've got torque tapes for Beta, 8 and VHS, but not for DAT.

Couldn't live without them.
Somebody get me a set of those...seriously.

Enjoy,
Rich P

I am happy to say I got mine. I found a few listed concurrently on ebay. I managed to get what I wanted for a decent price. However, they were missing for 2 months. I asked the seller to look for them - they were sent insured - and started a dispute on ebay.

Eventually, the German post office discovered them in the central despatch in Athens. The seller didn't write a post office code on the parcel. I was eventually able to track them down and get them on my hands 3 months after paying for them. (Sigh)...

I record a tuned guitar's "a" string through the mic input at about 0db,hitting the note every couple of seconds and let it sustain.Then i play the recording back from the headphone jack into the guitar tuner and see how close the pitch is.

i guess you'll need a guiter,tuner and a couple of patch courds but thats how i determine the tape speed.

Basically how I tested my Maranz Superscope portables. I do have a test tape an there was an "A" (440hz) tone on it, so I used my tuner to adjust the speed to that. I crosschecked the test tape on a known accurate deck to make sure it was correct as the tape was one of those $14.95 ones.

Actually, after thinking about it - isn't speed difference only noticeable if I move tapes between decks? If I record something on the slow deck and then play back on the slow deck, wouldn't that still play back at the same speed as the original source? I would think the same would hold true for a fast deck. Does that sound right to you guys?

TRUTH!!! Speed accuracy only matters when you record on one deck and playback on another. My Denon DR-M22 plays 20 min tape in 26 min. If I record a tape on it, then play it back, it sounds great. Maybe even a bit better freq. response at the 2.+ ips :music: However, playback on any other deck is not desirable :no:

Thanks Harvey. That seems to be the case for my decks. As long as I play back on same deck as recorded - speed seems fine...