On 22 Nov 2003 12:19:52 -0800, (mr c deckard)
wrote:

------snip---

and i can't find a manual at all for a reasonable price ($250usd !=
reasonable) -- although a german gentleman posted a link to a
download, but alas, the manual for the A77 only has the front cover in
the zip file . . ., and the pr99 is available only in german.

so i'm going to replace the roller, but the sync shield thing concerns
me.

A manual for $250?! Or the whole machine with 2 manuals? God
Allmighty.

While I don't quite second posting manuals free online as they're
copyrighted too (Revox still sells the operating and service manuals
but certainly for a tenth of the above price at maximum), my inner
myself always giggles a bit when I find one at the web.

So here you'll find a service manual for the PR99 (MKII) for, khem,
free:

http://www.arky.ru/audio/

Now when you're at that site, look at the black links bar where stands
something like "cxembi". That's Schematics in Russian. When you're at
the page, the Revox PR99 Service Manual is #59. It's a zip containing
gif pictures of pages and it's abt. 18,5 MB.

If the tape swimms on new heads, check for clearances at guide roller
bearings, which should be medically clean so and so, clean the
capstan with a isopropyl alcohol and wash the capstan roller in a mild
detergent then dry, but only if the roller is of older type ie. pure
rubber (it has an arrow for the rotation direction then). Often the
newer rollers are made of a greenish rubber-like synthetics. It's so
hygroscopic that you'll get something like Blue Tack of the material
until you bake it at 70 degrees C and let dry.

A dirty capstan, or some other tape run problem, excels at the very
end of the tape: you can clearly hear wow at 1 or 3 KHz.

Edi Zubovic, Crikvenica, Croatia