1960's Portable Sound - Convenience in a Crate! | Vintage Hifi Revival

[@HifiJelly]

I should have mentioned that due to popular demand I am now using a JIS screwdriver set. Now they seem identical to my Philips screwdivers, so I may have been scammed, but they fit well in these screws.

[@channelsixtysix066]

About ten years ago, the Japanese Industrial Standard cross-head was discontinued. I went to the Vessel website and found that out. They are still very good screwdrivers and worth purchasing.

[@davidkornblatt851]

Have you thought about replacing All the Caps and Resisters!

[@quantumleap359]

A set of JIS drivers are excellent for these 60s and 70s Japanese tape machines, as JIS hardware was in widespread use back then. They look very much like SAE #1 and #2 screwdrivers but are certainly different and fit the JIS screws much better.

[@aftertheendtimes]

You always do a great work ,..I just bought a Tandberg 3000x from 1970-1972, can´t wait to make a overlook and service 😃💚

[@HifiJelly]

Thanks! Thats a cool looking machine, I like the joystick controls haha

[@aftertheendtimes]

@@HifiJelly Hi dear Hifi Jam, I got my Tandberg 3000x Today , And man, it came in origial Embalage and it was in mint condition, it had only 1 flaw and it is a broken light blub that reacts with the optic sensor that shut of the player at the end, but it seems to be common fault, but what can one ask it is over 50 yrs 😆😄 I am exited anyway,...Thanks for your presence and great channel again. Love Cheers from Sweden ❤

[@3dsmaxrocks699]

Watching this right after fixing a am/fm/sw radio and now assembling a FM transmitter kit. Thanks!! Made my night!👍

[@heelan19]

The most exciting channel notification I get!

[@robertstone4998]

Me too!!!

[@channelsixtysix066]

When I saw the thumbnail, I thought it was a Revox A77. Then I put my glasses on and realised everything on the front panel was the opposite way round.

[@Madjed2024]

Another very enjoyable and informative video that shows your attention to detail even in cleaning and renovating I am amazed by the mechanical engineering that was prevalent 50 years ago and wonder why none of these manufacturer make new machines with all the progress made on materials I guess it is the darn streaming business that killed all of it

[@bones007able]

Those panasonic decks always used cheap RCA jacks that would break loose from the backs... everyone I ever worked on had that problem

[@engineerbot]

Love your content bro. Just my kind of channel. I love this kind of stuff. Plus you got a great voice and you’re pretty good at editing.

[@HifiJelly]

Thanks!

[@theoloutlaw]

Next video, Hifi Jam does complete capacitor restoration :)

[@HifiJelly]

It’ll be the day when I finally replace a capacitor haha

[@theoloutlaw]

@@HifiJelly Haha! Yeah, I'm like you with these old reel to reel machines, I do all the mechanical maintenance and when I look at the 100 capacitors/transistors, I seal it shut and think 'another day'. I got one on the bench now, an old Toshiba thing, just got to have the right patience to tackle it. I'm looking for inspirational video's ahaha

[@3dsmaxrocks699]

I would've replaced all the old electrolytic caps for starters. Might be why the balance is off. Remember those caps are 50 plus years old and probably shot and their ESR values are probably shit. And adjust the azimuth on the head. Try other known good tapes etc At 6:33 those 2 transistors ....one might going bad....or both. (Tin whiskers) Old electronics is like old plumbing. You fix something over here then something over there goes bad.

[@HifiJelly]

The problem was much less pronounced when using a tape professionally produced, it may have been exaggerated by tapes I recorded that were not loud enough, so I really had to crank it up. Nonetheless I'm sure some or all of those caps need to be replaced and or test the voltages on the transistors. I've not done a cap replacement before, so I'd be interested in doing a before/after comparison on the piece of equipment I do it to.

[@KarlAdamsAudio]

Very cool. As a youngster I owned a Toshiba GT-840s which was a similar concept - an interesting feature is that they used the two hinges as the conductors for the speaker connections, so you didn't need cables when using the built-in speakers.

[@HifiJelly]

Now that’s a really cool solution to getting rid of the wires, I’m surprised that the hinge connection would be tight enough to to not have too much resistance.

[@billhennigan3773]

I have a craig 710 with a "T" bar activator...took it apart and did my restore to my best ability..plays great with 2 speakers also..I have 12 recorders all fully worked on my best is a pioneer 707...You are amazingly smart and inventive..love to watch your mind set in restoreing these decks...

[@HifiJelly]

Thank you!

[@gmespia]

Great work. That felt ring at 8:23 is to catch any possible oil droplets thrown from the shaft when it spins.

[@HifiJelly]

Thanks!

[@oldradiotvsc9836]

Excellent job! It seems like the channel imbalance might be a bad capacitor in the preamp section of the right channel Probably in a stage that is before the final line output, which may be why the channels at the output are balanced when in mono. It is not uncommon for electrolytic caps to randomly go bad or dry up from this vintage. Possibly also a bad transistor or resistor but less likely.

[@that_laughing_hyena]

The funny thing is that a few hours ago i boight a calibration kit for my Revox A77, a few months back i changed almost every caps and now i need to calibrate it Btw you did a really great job on that Panasonic, like you always do

[@HifiJelly]

Thanks!

[@passivate]

Crazy coincidence, I found one of these units in the Goodwill outlet bins in Colorado Springs, CO 30 minutes before closing time. This was two day after this video was posted. I hadn't seen the video at the time, and I left it behind, - thinking I didn't need another project. I'm sure it's in the landfill now.

[@HifiJelly]

I was pretty close to passing it by as well, but I'm glad I opened it to have a better look as I love this mid to late 60's aesthetic.

[@error52]

Great work on reviving the old beast! That mechanism is absolutely ridiculous and I love it! Regarding the imbalance issue - it's not supposed to be like that. The channels should, in theory, sound the same, if the knobs are in the same position. Having said that, unless you plan to use the machine regularly, just leave it alone. You can spend HOURS trying to find that dried electrolytic cap, or that transistor, that has slightly less gain than its brother, and it's just not really worth it for a machine that will be a shelf queen. One lazy fix that I've done a couple of times is to put a trimmer potentiometer, somewhere in the signal path of the louder channel, and bring its level down to that of the quieter channel.

[@HifiJelly]

Thanks! And the imbalance issue, I am glad I didn’t spend too much time messing with it, since it really is nearly a non issue. This thing will only be brand new once, and having the volume knobs separate is such a small thing that I can live with it fine.

[@koozmusic]

I agree that it's almost certainly not an _intended_ characteristic of the deck. Being that the issue is present both through the built-in amp as well as the line-out, I'd say it's somewhere in the preamp section, but with a machine of this caliber and the unlikelihood of you using it on the regular, it's probably not worth chasing down. One thing I'd like to suggest is to make yourself a good sounding test tape (if you have a deck that can produce one), or use a commercially-released 7 1/2 IPS tape. The material on your final playback was lo-fi and full of weird pitch shifting, etc. and it's difficult to tell whether the result is crappy due to the source material, or if it's a problem with the deck itself. Don't discount their capability on account of their age - a good reel-to-reel at 7 1/2 IPS should be near CD quality to the average listener!

[@HifiJelly]

I have a few professionally produced tapes, and they sound great, quite a bit better than what I can record, and the balance problem is less noticeable with them. But alas I can’t use them in the videos without running into copyright issues.

[@Brpwndood]

@@HifiJelly My dad had the very similar RS 760s with the exact imbalance problem. I used it quite often in the 70s and got around it by adjusting the levels. Come to think of it maybe the pot resistanses are different since one has a detent to switch power on/off and the designers didnt think of that being a big deal back then.

[@amrkoptan4041]

@@HifiJelly You can also determine if it's an amp issue if you bypass the internal amp with an external one. thanks again for the video.

[@ohmbug10]

Haha! I was wondering about the music. Was wishing you had AH-fixit's music so I could know for sure. Lol. I have no clue if the imbalance is just the way it was designed. Good video!

[@HifiJelly]

Thanks! the music thing only occurred to me when editing it haha.

[@60gregma]

That recording seemed a bit weak but it looked like the meters were defecting at about the same level right and left, so your weak audio is probably in the speaker amplifier of the weaker channel. Could be bad caps, but also some devices of this era had germanium transistors. Germanium transistors can get flaky over time. If you put the machine into monitor mode and crank up the volume, do you hear hiss/crackle from one side? That might be a bad germanium transistor.

[@amrkoptan4041]

That was a great job !! I never met a panasonic system with good tweets, always suppressed in a way... turns out yours is not an exception. I am sure u can get more bandwidth out of the head with an external line/phono amplifier, that would be a good experiment on how good the head is.. still a great video and I enjoyed every bit of it..

[@MacPhantom]

That muffled sound does not seem to be normal. Causes could be misaligned heads (azimuth), worn heads, bad filter capacitors in the speaker crossover, components out of spec in the amp module, etc. It's probably a combination of multiple of those. He also said his amp was uneven in volume level left/right, so there's something wrong with it anyway.

[@benyaneff2023]

Time really is convoluted...

[@intell2OOO]

felt on a flywheel - is for oil catching purpose.

[@HifiJelly]

Ah thanks! That makes sense!

[@sinanb3692]

I think the problem with the channels and the recording are worn heads. I saw many of them and a worn head has a lot of influence on the sound. You can relap the heads. There are some good videos showing how it has to be done. Nice Video!

[@jefftobin4034]

Great restoration. Regarding the weak right channel, yes, it is not normal. Looking at the VU meters, it seems that the recording level was equal (verify that is true). Did you check head alignment? I would think that could cause the issue. Using divide an conquer, if you can get the right channel to have equal volume with an external source, but it's low coming off the tape, then the problem is the tape play path (i.e. heads reading signal off of tape, into the audio amp).

[@猪熊大介]

Oh! It's made in Japan. And Panasonic ! Great

[@michaelcharach]

I was hoping for some 3D printing here. Thought you were going to print up a new part for the inputs. What you did still turned out well.

[@jorgecanedo2419]

It´s a beautiful machine I love it.

[@russellhltn1396]

Odds are what's happening is a coupling capacitor is failing, reducing the volume in one channel. If you have a ESR meter, check them. In particular, make sure they're reasonable matched between channels. I've seen that before, the sound is thin and weak.

[@jean-lucaudoin8538]

As well, check for weak / dry solder. And some old Japanese resistors were designed to act as a fuse, so their value could have changed under electrical or heat stress.

[@butcharmstrong9645]

Back in the 70s I had a Wollensak portable reel to reel very much like this with powered, removable stereo speakers and soft touch controls. It was about 3" shorter than yours too. I do remember it had a way to record 4 tracks in mono so I was wondering if that could be whats going on with the weird volume issues.

[@HifiJelly]

Possibly, I think you would be able to record 4 mono tracks with this as well with the mono switch, which is maybe why you’d need that left channel knob to be extra loud for recording?

[@theclearsounds3911]

Sorry I'm a year late in this reply, but there's a simple test to tell if it's the alignment, a faulty tape head, or the preamp circuits. Simply short the two channels at the tape head with clip leads. If that fixes the problem, it's the tape head or the alignment. If it doesn't fix it, the problem is in the amplifier. Let's hope it's in the preamp, because it's easier to fix. I'm betting on the preamp, because if it were the tape head or alignment, the problem would vary based on which direction you were playing the tape. Insert a small sine wave at the tape heads and follow it with an oscilloscope through each channel preamp. With identical circuits in each channel, you will find where the difference begins. You can even figure this out without a schematic.

[@richardgarai8042]

Nice job!

[@HifiJelly]

Thanks!

[@robfriedrich2822]

I knew record player in suitcase design with amplifier and attachable speakers and tape recorders with built in speakers.

[@pcallas66]

I'm guessing the brake pads were either felt like you said or cork.

[@jamalmoss9543]

You did a fantastic job fixing this recorder! I enjoyed watching every minute. Do you do repair jobs? I have a 50-year-old Sony cassette recorder that works mechanically, but can’t get any sound out of it.

[@jasonvene]

If one channel plays much louder than the other, make sure you have the right tape in the machine. The symptom you describe would be correct if you play a half track tape on a quarter track machine.

[@ssgeek4515]

If it has no transistors then that big can thing is likely a mains filter.If it does have transistors then it's more likely a motor run cap to get motor turning

[@djsonnymotto9979]

The flywheel is really the capstan which controls the speeds

[@HifiJelly]

Yep, and da bigger da better

[@adamsanders9171]

Invest in a step drill bit to drill holes in thin materials.

[@quantumleap359]

The music choice at 27 minutes is a rather unfortunate one, as the tempo slows down, almost acting like there is a speed variation of the deck. It's not, but it sure sounds like it! I know copyright problems occur with KZbin, but a test tone would be a better choice to make wow and flutter and long term speed stability checks. Just an aside, not a criticism. Overall, a good video. Cheers!

[@shawnjenkins8707]

Capacitors need replacement

[@alex1520]

high frequency response seemed a bit off. are the heads worn? I would have demagged the heads too (maybe you did that off camera?)

[@HifiJelly]

I didn’t and I should do that, keep in mind I am not great at recording on the tape, and that could be the source of the problem, or that’s it played on speakers, recorded on mic then played back through KZbin lol.

[@Earcandy73]

Your unequal volume problem will most likely be due to dried out capacitors in the preamp circuit.

[@TechieZeddie]

The fan needs to be balanced because of wow and flutter.

[@Dracowolf90]

what kind of oil your using

[@pcallas66]

You may have weak electrolytic capacitors between the two channels.

[@HifiJelly]

All my sound is leaking out!

[@waynepollard6879]

Brakes are cork ! Tape head needs adjusting !

[@joeyjustin6895]

ALOT OF OLD HEADS ARE GLASS BECAUSE GLASS DOESNT WEAR. ITS THE DECKS FROM THE MID 80S AND 90S THAT WEAR

[@theclearsounds3911]

I have an Akai GX-F80 cassette deck from the late 70's. It has glass heads that are worn somewhat, but not badly. Glass heads wear, just not as much as the metal ones. After the 70's most stereo equipment was made poorly in general, so I agree 100% with your second statement.

[@Mac__Tonight]

wow..... first video that youve been stumped on a item xdd

[@HifiJelly]

Haha figured I had a good resource at hand to answer my questions about this thing.

[@Francescawine]

Most likely out tolance capacitor

[@scaleop4]

👍👍

[@frankowalker4662]

What a great find. You did a good job repairing and cleaning it, but yeah, your choice of demo music sucks. LOL

[@HifiJelly]

Haha yeah I should stick to more acoustical music so it’s easier to tell if it sounds correct to the audience.

[@robertdickson5519]

I could be just the recording on the tape????

[@HifiJelly]

I think it’s partially that, it wasn’t a very loud recording and accentuated the balance issue. With a professionally recorded tape it isn’t as noticeable

[@sjefhendrickx2257]

Sony had a same model

[@websitesthatneedanem]

👍👍👍👍