Panasonic SV3700 DAT machine from HELL

So much time wasted on this. Now I remember why I stopped servicing DAT machines when I worked in the business.

[@hansu-nihon]

I'm always surprised how good your knowledge is about these mechanisms and finding and repairing the faults. I wished I had for my repairs.

[@12voltvids]

This is my deck now. Will experiment with it and see if i can glue that broken guide and make it work.

[@jakefiersing]

​@@12voltvidsOn the other hand it may be possible to produce a new guidance with a 3 D printer ? ----- Have you successfully glued the guidance ?

[@12voltvids]

@@jakefiersing no 3d printer.

[@Raptor50aus]

Nice work as always Dave, yeah funny as I have received some Video walkmans that only needed the cleaning tape.:) I'm still enjoying my Sony D8 and TCD-D100 DAT walkmans. Yes always good to thoroughly test before sending a unit back. Lots of patience too.

[@ESDI80]

eBay has become a pain to get good deals on stuff anymore. More and more I see sellers trying to see stuff as untested or not working for ridiculous mounts of money.

[@12voltvids]

eBay floggers are also pushing up prices on other platforms because people see "parts" units listed at ridiculous prices and think their garbage is worth money. This one just became a parts donor. I have listed parts donors before and I can't even get 25 for them. I put a DA 30 up for parts that was mostly working I just didn't need it had a problem with the meter but functionally it worked fine just to display didn't work I have lots of inquiries to take it off my hands for $25 but when they found out the cost of shipping it they backed away.

[@12voltvids]

@@TD75 doesn't matter what the seller puts down. No returns no warranty no refund means nothing. Ask me how i know.

[@1lennetje]

Interesting video. I see you are using the Ampex 467 DAT tape. My experience with it is very bad. Ampex Tapes from 20 - 25 years old are difficult to play on my DAT machines and give a lot of dropouts. TDK< Maxell, Sony, Fuji and That's tapes continue to do well.

[@chriscutress1702]

I always thought the Panasonic DAT machines were from HELL. I've had a lot of experience with Sony and Tascam (and even a Fostex) but tapes recorded on Panasonic machines almost always had playback problems on the Sony and Tascam's and audio recorded on the S & T's often failed to track properly on the Panasonic machines. Finally the powers that were decided that they wouldn't purchase any more Panasonic units and each DAT would be labelled as to what machine they were recorded on so that Panasonic recorded tapes could be digitally transferred before use to remedy the playback difficulties. In time the Panasonic units were permanently removed from use and replaced by Tascam DA-30's and later DA-40's. They also later obtained the Sony 7030, 7040 and 7050 machines to replace modified home units. The conversion to CDR burners was rapid when the HHB units became available.

[@12voltvids]

The only thing Panasonic made that was any good and these are really good. Madam grill microwave / radiant heat oven mine is going strong from 1988. Panasonic bread makers, Panasonic air conditioners. Had mine since 93. Plasma TV, suv9 amplifier rsm275 and the 3 head version slm1 and sl1200 turntable and a few speaker models. Most of their VCRs were crap, power supplies blowing up left right and center and video heads that wore down 5x faster than Hitachi and Mitsubishi. Video cameras that just never looked right. Panasonic was initially a DCC format supporter. They jumped on the DAT bandwagon after DCC failed. Sony and tascam already had established themself as the recording studio standard machines. Panasonic was playing catch up and they just never made it. My 2 da40 decks are flawless. You would expect that from tascam / teac though as that is all they made. Tape recorders geared for professional use.

[@chriscutress1702]

@@12voltvids I agree. Teac/Tascam also made the later ATR reel tape machines for Ampex. Then when Ampex got out of that business Teac/Tascam came out with their version of the ATR series which were nice machines. I still have my 8 track, 4 track and 35-2B 2 track machines and they still run flawlessly after all these years with just belt and some capacitor replacement.

[@zx8401ztv]

Well that was a pain in the ass!, shame they didn't make the part out of metal :-(

[@12voltvids]

Because it's Panasonic. The parent company has shit in their name. MatsuSHITa

[@svenschwingel8632]

@@12voltvids they sure didn't build their DATs like Technics built their SL-1200s. Later Technics cassette decks also had a lot of plastic cogs that were prone to premature failure although the devices themselves were actually pretty good.

[@robinsattahip2376]

Why argue with the eBay clowns asking ridiculous amounts of money for old electronics or anything else. Greed is blinding.

[@johnsampson1096]

Dave, you look like David Crosby on your channel thumbnail! I'm glad I never got into DAT format as I was tempted to when it was released. I got hooked on Sony Minidisc in the early 2000s and still use the format. Yeah, I also fell into Betamax in the early eighties. Thanks for your informative in depth repair videos.

[@12voltvids]

DAT was and still is the best sounding format. Minidisk is like mp3, compressed audio. Dispite what some will try to claim when you use lossy compression which atrac is, like mp3 you are removing information and throwing it away. Like CD, DAT records 100% of the information. Nothing is lost on the recording. Can't hear the difference that's great. Many can't and it isn't your fault it is just you don't have a trained ear. Anyone that has been around actual instruments, in other words musicians can hear the difference instantly. Minidisk was for the masses as a portable recording format to take music on the go before ss memory was large enough to do it. There are still thousands of dat recorders out there in use. Not so much professionally these days as everything is hard drive based now, but lots of hobbiests have picked up the old cast away dat recorders and continue to use them. They were used extensively in recording studios, radio stations, tv stations and for film sound location recording. Have s friend that is a sound guy in the film industry and told me they used to run double dat. One peakkng at 0 and the other set 20db lower just i case something went too loud and distorted on the main tape, and as a backup. That was after the nagra open reel days and before hard drive audio recording. These days it goes right i to the external recorder the digital camera plugs into.

[@johnsampson1096]

@@12voltvids True, Dave, I used to know the difference, before I blew my ear drums in the seventies frequently going to Boston's Discos. I'm now 73 and am lucky to hear anything over 5 kps! I'd do it again for sure.

[@Raptor50aus]

@@12voltvidsDave, what about the Sony MZ-RH1 that will record in PCM on the 1GB Mini disc? Isn't that CD quality?

[@12voltvids]

@@Raptor50aus how many people have that one and the disks are not compatable with standard md. That's like comparing super VHS with regular VHS or high eight with regular 8 mm. True hiatus a little more popular but super VHS wasn't.

[@Raptor50aus]

@@12voltvids I have it :)

[@hugovale8070]

i got that part , for only 500 bucks i will send it ;=) love your work

[@alexandrossotiropoulos5621]

It is true, ebay has gone crazy on those things! They ask for crazy money to buy those old machines.

[@12voltvids]

Well to see what people pay for TS concert tickets. 1500 to 2000 for a show. I guess that is what all those drugs do to people. I'm sorry no performer is worth that. I wouldn't go to her show if you paid me. Can't pay off the credit card bill but can afford to go to a concert for 1500 per seat and take the entire family. So 6k for a show. Crazy.

[@alexandrossotiropoulos5621]

@@12voltvids Yes it is really crazy money!

[@alexandrossotiropoulos5621]

@@12voltvids Yes it is a total craze!

[@Raptor50aus]

Where do you find them for $20?

[@christophero1969]

And if bought a DAT machine for $30.00 dollars and spent 2 hour fixing it with, glue, how much would you resell that DAT machine for? NOT $300 or $400.00 dollars, maybe $150.00 right?

[@12voltvids]

The most I have ever paid for a dat was 20.00. The most I have ever gotten for one is 60.00! And that was working perfectly. I heard people say fat machine is worth $1,000. Sure it is, in your dreams. I had a da30 up for sale, it went for 50 and when the guy found out what the shipping cost was he backed out.

[@danieldemayo6209]

@@12voltvids there’s ppl trying to sell 3700s on eBay right now for $200-$400 lol. Thought they were nuts too. Just scored a 3800 for $80 with shipping. Maybe I can sell it for $250 ;)

[@12voltvids]

@@danieldemayo6209 well i got this one free. I got 2 years dap20 and a tascam dap1 for free and a Sony DTC 75es free, a tascam DA30 free and paid 20 each for 2 tascam da40. That's about what i value old dat machines at. I gave away my old 3500. I doubt that many sell for much on eBay. I had my da30 up for awhile for 50 plus shipping. When the prospective buyer found out that shipping cost was north of 100 they backed out real fast. There was a local guy selling a broken 3700 for 300 on FB. I offered him 20 and he sent me eBay listings. I said good luck. It's still listed but he has come down to 250. I made him an even lower offer and he blocked me.

[@danieldemayo6209]

I got one of these cheap on eBay a while back. Took it apart and had no clue what I was doing lol somehow I got it back together and it works okay. I tried qtips and contact cleaner and yes it’s a bitch to get in there.

[@12voltvids]

This one goes into my collection. Probably never to be used due to no LP mode support. Most of the tapes i logged off FM broadcasts back in the day were recorded in LP mode

[@danieldemayo6209]

@@12voltvids I honestly didn’t even know you could record these a different speeds till you said it. Guess I need to read the manual.

[@12voltvids]

@@danieldemayo6209 not all machines support LP. LP is a reduced quality recording. 12 bits vs 16 and 32khz sample rate. The snr drops from 85 down to about 72 and the frequency response is limited to 15khz. It is called the FM mode by many. FM radio rolls off at 15khz to prevent heyrodyning with the 19khz pilot tone so no point is recording anything over 15khz when recording FM and it doubles recording time. Many FM stations that used DAT for automation used the LP speed to package programming for the same reason. Transmitter isn't going to accept anything above 15khz so a 4 hour show could be put together by a DJ and then the engineer just throws the tape it and hits play and has a nap. This was done for many over night time slots. The DJ would be in an offline studio during the day. His clock would be synchronized with his program start time so he's doing his show spending records playing commercials talking away to a tape recorder and reading the time that it's going to air at. Does this during the day and it goes home. The night shift engineer who's in the station by himself doing engineer stuff in other words making sure the transmitter stays on the air loads of tape precious plate and then goes back to his maintenance stuff. Which is typically doing maintenance work on the live studios that are used during the day. Had a friend that worked in radio for years and he was telling me this is how a lot of station did it. they recorded on real to real a lot of times but when that came out it was the perfect medium because it was small high quality and cheap compared to the cost of real to real tapes.

[@danieldemayo6209]

@@12voltvids very informative. Thanks!

[@amatorev]

Stupid cassette decks, problems problems moree problems