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On Aug 7, 5:55 pm, wrote:
Wow, I never knew that azimuth stability was such a problem with
cassettes. Thanks so much for pointing that out.

How do you know how to adjust the azimuth - or how would a device know
what the correct setting is? Is there some fail safe way to tell, or
do you have to use your own ears?

Thanks again.

On Aug 7, 3:36 pm, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

wrote:
Thanks for your reply.
How important is azimuth control?

It's critical. Because azimuth stability on the cassette is so awful, you
will need to adjust azimuth for every cassette, or let the automatic device
do it for you. Otherwise you will either have no high end on half the
tapes you find, or it will wander in and out.

Note that if you have a thousand tapes, you should expect to find at least
a few dozen that need to be transplanted into new shells or at least have
the pressure pad replaced. Get a box of fifty SHAPE shells to have around
for the job.

Are all cleaner cassettes bad? Are there any good ones?

Well, none of them clean the whole path, and they are more trouble than just
doing it with a swab.

What is the best degausser?

You don't need one. If you _really_ want one, get the Annis Han-D-Mag with
the magnetometer, which allows you to measure remnant flux so you only wind
up demagnetizing when it's necessary. But with a proper transport, you should
not have any magnetic metals anywhere near the tape except in the head. The
erase and record heads get demagnetized when you use them, and the playback
head should not easily be magnetized. Note that the Annis today costs more
than most cassette decks.

Most people do more harm than good with a degaussing wand.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

here are two nakamichi decks with azimuth controls listed with
AudiogoN
nak DR1 http://tinyurl.com/2rv2rd
nak CR7A http://tinyurl.com/34tb7g