Technics RSM63 3 Head Cassette deck from 1979 basic service

[@MVPTimothyMichaels]

Thanks, The motor speed location was very valuable.

[@savvassidiropoulos5952]

There is a hidden feature on this transport decks. If you press PLAY + REW at the same time, it will rewind the cassette to the beginning and then start playing again. And if you set memory for a zero location, will rewind to the 000 location and start playing from there. It's a nice handy little feature that shows how much care was put into building this transport. And another nice feature for poor students: You can mix between line input and mic input. Decades ago I built a simple passive RIAA filter and used that to connect a second turntable to the deck. I was able to do nice mix recordings with cross-fade between tracks, something that only pro DJs could do back then. My first proper stereo cassette deck was an RS-631. Two head with average performance. I now have the M63 in my collection and, like yours, it needed nothing to start playing again. Only cleaning the pots. BTW, HPF stands for "High Performance Ferrite" according to Technics nomenclature.

[@njm1971nyc]

Pretty sure that's "hot pressed ferrite", but I could be wrong.

[@savvassidiropoulos5952]

@@njm1971nyc I searched the HPF name a bit and you are probably right. I've found references to hot pressed ferrite but not for high performance ferrite.

[@borlibaer]

this mechanical Technics RS M63 HPF 3-Head MC Deck just makes You happy over decades without problems. It basically got all You need.

[@mickspencer4171]

That definitely deserves a full going over,I'd like to see that.

[@steveoszman8746]

Just bought one yesterday and now I feel like it is worth every cent. Thanks you are the man.

[@moshezaharia4666]

Great deck Dave! A few points to take note: prior to recording you need to set the fine bias for each tape individually to make it sound right. Other point from my experiance with my Aiwa AF-F850: the internal controls got dirty and the fine bias had no effect, so I had to mark all of the internal controlls, use contact cleaner and work them. After the cleaning, I set all the controls to the original position and the problem was solved. My deck has no internal test tones generator, so I use the recommended method from the user manual which is using the FM hiss from the tuner (you adjust the fine bias to make the FM hiss on the tape to sound excactly like the source).

[@12voltvids]

Yes FM hiss is also called white noise and can be used for fine bias. There is another video coming in this one where I will be doing just that a more involved service including cleaning all the trimmers.

[@Mister-Salieri]

41 yo belt and still works, Damn! Imagine how long it can last with a new belt.

[@THOMMGB]

Dave, I've got this exact model cassette tape recorder. I found it in a thrift shop for $10.00 a few years ago. When I saw that this was a 3 head cassette deck and the Dim/Bright light control I knew this was a higher end machine. I was very pleased to hear all the kind things you had to say about this machine. The good news is that my machine works as well. I plan to follow along and do to my machine what you did to yours. Lucky me, all of the indicator lights (including the orange tape remaining indicator light) are still good, so maybe this is a low mileage machine.

[@m80116]

NEVER trust a used tape, not even if has been in your inventory for so many years. I almost got hung up because of a TDK SA tape I used as reference that was degraded, but just in specific places and just slowly fading to it. I was beginning to question my sanity and whether I was really knowing how to read the voltages. It turns out, I wasn't mad after all... but it took me a while to figure it out and at one point I was even looking for ghosts in the REC amplifier, at another time in the capstan board (don't ask why) all because of that tape. I WASTED countless hours hunting problems that did not exist in the first place.

[@marjanstefanovski5018]

I have 41 year old Technics RS-673 very similar to RS-676 and it's still works.

[@Luke-san]

1979 and Technics already making really making a nice tape deck with those lovely VU-meters that was every boys dream (meaning me myself and I). I would love a new modern deck with updated electronics but the old quality mechanics.

[@38911bytefree]

Love this machines with the tank-built internals and the classic old school face design.

[@Sans_Solo_]

This is weird Dave....I just bought one of these locally for $35 in mint condition. Going to replace the belts and might do a recap on it....This deck actually sounds very good!

[@ClausTrophobia77]

HI - I'm about to buy this model - just have one question - is it possible to replace the glass on the cassette chamber door?the one I'm about to get has it really scratched

[@leeving4912]

I'd love to see a video of how you get the transport mechanism out to change out the belt. I just got one that has an issue with the pinch roller not fully engaging with the capstan. It looks fine but just when it almost there, it goes a bit limp. I can push it in place and it works/sounds good.

[@andynoon2584]

A very nice tape deck, they don't make anything like that anymore. Thanks for showing it to us.

[@jeremytravis360]

I used to sell quite a few of these. They were a good basic deck that was reliable and easy to work on and set up. The only weakness was the long PCB mounted record playback switch which had a tendency to fail.

[@38911bytefree]

As many other decks. I repair boomboxes some yers ago ... and every single one of them had issues on the record bar. They dont move too much so they sone "sefl clean" plus mose of them are opened on the sides so dirt can get better (LOL)

[@PeterMilanovski]

@@38911bytefree but why would anyone want to record on a boombox? In all my time, I have only ever come across one boombox that had the proper AC bias erase head! Every other one had the permanent magnet type, you can easily tell because it has no wires! It doesn't erase the tape properly and the recording always sounds terrible with a lot of noise!

[@Sans_Solo_]

Just now doing a full recap and belt replacement on my silver M63. Super easy to recap this unit compared to my Nakamichi's. Main board can be easily removed and all cable plugs to the board are factory labeled (as should be for any product) This is an impressive well made deck. Sleeper on used market. Sounds excellent

[@Sans_Solo_]

Oh by the way my original 1979 belts were found to be in excellent condition.....but I replaced anyway for good measure.

[@12voltvids]

If I actually used it I would consider doing more, but I don't use it at all. I have better decks if I need to use tape.

[@zulumax1]

Been working on two1978 Teac CX-400 piano key decks that was going to the electronic recycle. One has a broken flywheel and some botched hacked repairs to it, so it is now the parts donor. Three head ferrite in ferrite style head. Main capstan belt turned to tar. Just wanted another mechanical piano key three head deck for the same reasons you mentioned.

[@HogGreen]

I think first you need to clean the linear mode switch. It is activated by the record button and is located on the board below. He's been on the screen since 6:55

[@stvlu733]

The red triangular input indicator actually does have a working red shaped LED behind it like the others. You can actually punch out this red painted plug and expose the LED to function. It' just stays on all the time. I think it looks better that way.Some just have a round LED and not the shaped one.

[@tacofortgens3471]

Love the piano keys

[@12voltvids]

Good old solid built like a brick shithouse tape deck.

[@PeterMilanovski]

I noticed that you didn't adjust the bias control while you were recording! Every brand of tape has a specific preference for where the bias should be set. On a three head machine like your one it's so easy to do, just make a test recording and make sure that you are listening to what's coming off the tape and adjust the bias till it sounds good to you and it will be recorded that way! I sometimes use it to dial in a little more treble or bass depending on what's needed. It's a feature that is not found on all cassette decks, I have a later model that doesn't have bias control so I pretty much have to find a brand and type of cassette that works best with the fixed bias level for that machine! That's also something that a lot of people don't know about either! Just because it's a metal tape, doesn't automatically mean that it's going to sound amazing on every cassette deck! That's why I have three other cassette decks that do have bias level adjust, a Yamaha in the lounge, a Denon in the spare room and a realistic which is an AIWA clone and an amazing recorder in the garage. I have more machines and other audio equipment that I'm not going to list here because I don't think that I could possibly post a comment that long lol. Okay I'm a hoarder deal with it! Anyway, another thing that I noticed and it kinda ties in with what you said about it being in storage for a long time. I have found that equipment that get plenty of use then one day goes into storage technically goes to sleep, well it's capacitors go to sleep, eventually they go into a coma! These older gear tend to have better capacitors fitted than the newer stuff, I bet that if you had plugged in the AC power cord into a wattmeter at the first fire up, you would have noticed that it would be consuming more power than it should but slowly over some run time it will drop! This syndrome is far worse with Amplifiers as the capacitors cop a shock from being in a coma and usually explode.. The record circuit hasn't been used for a long time and on the first try, you can hear how distorted the sound is but slowly gets better over time! But by the time that you swap the tape it's back to square one, the capacitors in the recording circuit are trying to reform! Personally, I would prefer you to re cap the whole machine, it might be a long video but definitely worth it and it will remain on KZbin as a guide to the full service on this machine! Honestly, that's the sort of video that I'm always looking for! You have an amazing talent for getting straight to the problem and fixing it fast but there's something about someone else doing a full restore that can hold me to random for 3hrs straight. Besides I get to learn something new along the way to.. but I understand that it's not for everyone... Anyway, give the bias level adjust a go as I mentioned earlier, it's a very useful tool for matching tapes to the machine and once it's recorded, it's set and it will sound great on any deck...

[@12voltvids]

I am fully aware of the bias adjustment and reforming capacitors. I did a bias demo on the tape comparison video that precedes this one. There are more videos coming on this one but if you are looking for a total recap that isn't likely as I am not a believer in a total recap. The vast majority of the caps will still be within spec for when they were new. The only time i do full recaps in with the old black beauties and wax caps found in old tube gear because they go electrically leaky and cause over bias of tubes which burns them out.

[@PeterMilanovski]

@@12voltvids fair enough, I tend to pull capacitors if the device that they came from has been sitting around doing nothing for a long time, they should be able to charge to their rated voltage and all current should stop, but that's just me LoL..

[@12voltvids]

@@PeterMilanovski They will reform.

[@PeterMilanovski]

@@12voltvids that's what she said LoL.

[@GeorgeGeorge-xj2bc]

Machines of this class was nearly impossible to find in the local shops in Greece in 1980 and later if were available the price was extremely high.Until the mids on '90s the tax fee was 36% for the imported goods.A hope to get a decent audio equipment in decent price was only a travel to Cyprus and buy from the duty free of the airport,or from the ships without paying taxes or from international transportation vehicles.

[@savvassidiropoulos5952]

Playback sounded like it was heavily under-biased. Could it be that the bias fine-adjust pot needs some cleaning?

[@crashbandicoot4everr]

When you recorded on the Fuji type 1 tape, it sounded too bright like the bias wasn't set right.

[@Synthematix]

@William Schwartz an aged tape wouldnt sound bright, it would sound dull.

[@PeterMilanovski]

Definitely the bias should have been adjusted, and with Dolby on it should be possible to achieve an amazing sound...

[@moshezaharia4666]

@William Schwartz It is a lack of bias: too little bias will sound too bright, too much bias will kill the highs.

[@Budro4764]

Yes I say Tek Neeks also , I had 2 turntables when I was a mobile Dee Jay and one of the stations I worked at had them also , in the production / commercial / ad spot rooms .........Awesome brand name .... I look for them at thrift shops and 2nd hand stores...

[@markgallagher0000]

great video,i would love to see you go through that m/c with your magic hands !!,cheers mk

[@zx8401ztv]

Nice old machine, i'm a sucker for the classic designs :-D That rec/play mode switch will need a drench in cleaner by now, and demag the heads. I've never seen a tapedeck that didn't need the all signals modeswitch cleaning. Working in a shop would have given you a wide range of electronics repair, valuable lessons.

[@12voltvids]

It was cleaned when i commented about cleaning the rest of them. I cut it during editing to shave some time.

[@demetrispatrikarakos5565]

Great video sir! Its was God send that I found this video. I was given the exact model of tape player- recorder and after cleaning the accumulated dust I replaced the both belts which were stretched over the years. Now I have extremely low output levels not even registering on the db meter. I connected it to a power amplifier and have stereo sound at high volume level but again low output level. I cleaned the heads with isopropyl alcohol. Can you advise me on what to do next so I can enjoy listening to old cassete recordings I did in the 80's? Thank you a lot.

[@Astralify]

10:53 that was kinda awesome. The pot cleaning remix. BTW do you have an M300 gauge? Would love to see you do a tape path alignment, especially on a dual capstan deck.

[@12voltvids]

The pot cleaning remix got a fraudulent copyright claim by someone trying to copyright royalty Free music.

[@GREENTICKETRO]

Recording at 0 db on my AIWA AD F 660,using blank new tape the signal recorded has the same level from the source....After that i put that recorded tape on several other mine decks...but is not showing the same value ....some deck show more,or less than that 0 db value recorded on the tape..is normal or that decks need to be calibrated again.The sounds is very nice .

[@razpones]

Wow! I got that one too! great machine, mine needs recap cuz it started to smell weird when it is on. Still sounds great though.

[@68pishta68]

Great vid, you never adjusted the bias for the tapes in monitor mode? I never had a Technics with a bad belt and never came across a Sony that DIDNT have melted belts! I wonder why Technics belts lasted so much longer than Sony? I have a 3 head Sony TC-K71 and the multi pin connectors as well as the trimmer pots look about the same. Same era, 1978, but no plastic in the Sony and a dual capstan design.

[@cubinn149]

Very cool thats a really nice deck

[@seacampal1425]

Sad; this machine looks awesome. 26:42 ...and a new pinch roller? I'm not impressed by the sound quality on all tapes tested. The sound is thin, lacking presence and impact. Flutter is high...

[@AlbertAGhazaleh]

It seems that nothing that is built in today's electronics has any lasting quality compare to 30 - 40+ years ago electronics

[@hifi.david.]

fact

[@mrnmrn1]

I've downloaded the service manual of this beauty. Seems like the erase/bias oscillator has a completely independent regulated power supply. Its bad performance with metal tape might be caused by a bad reservoir or output bypass capacitor in the erase/bias power supply. Since metal tapes need the highest erase and bias current, the metal tape's performance was the worst, but all the other tape types sounded very underbiased also.

[@12voltvids]

I will be doing a more involved investigation / restore on this one before I sell it.

[@mrnmrn1]

@@12voltvids Hopefully this means one more video with it :) . I did not know you are about to sell it. Also a ferrochrome tape test would be nice on it after the restoration.

[@12voltvids]

@@mrnmrn1 One of more videos with it. Yes I do part with the old gear from time to time. Eventually I will sell it as I don't use tapes at all and I have that nice 1010 now.

[@GREENTICKETRO]

NU-TROL or Deoxit d 5?Which is the best?

[@nicholastaylor5358]

Hello, I recently just found a top loading RCA VCR player and it won’t grab tapes I I would love to keep this VCR and was wondering if there is any possibility of me shipping my VCR out to you to take a look or fix it since I can not find any local repair shops Any response would be helpful thank you

[@12voltvids]

Shipping to Canada would cost a bloody fortune.

[@nicholastaylor5358]

@@12voltvids Haha this is very true I appreciate the response

[@ingenfestbrems]

That isolation of high voltage components says this is a quality deck 👍🏻

[@12voltvids]

On 1979 this was top of the line.

[@fadhlematrook1248]

YES ITS ONE OF GOOD MACHAINE

[@pliedtka]

The Fuji DR1 is a basic junk tape and always records at lower level, it's noisy and distorts. Try TDK AD tape - it was one of the better Normal bias, or least BASF SuperFerro tapes. I think this machine should perform best with Type II tapes. Nice, very well build deck - Ferrite heads should last.

[@PeterMilanovski]

Tape choice shouldn't matter with this machine! It has manual bias level adjustment which should have been used during this video but strangely enough it wasn't. The tapes that you mentioned might have sounded good to you when recording on your cassette deck which might have had it's recording bias set at the factory to work well with some tapes but not all, unless you also had adjustable bias level too!

[@HuntersMoon78]

Now I know what the hole in the back of the motor is for.

[@duncan-rmi]

& put tape around the shaft of the screwdriver so you don't short the tweak to the case of the motor.

[@duncan-rmi]

massively under-biased. pinch is a bit shiny too. I bought one of their two-head machines in 1981, the rsm-250... head was guaranteed for ten years. it, & several other technics machines from the same era, still going strong here. if they have a weakness at all, it's the capstan motors, which develop servo problems or just plain wear out.

[@radiologe9271]

maybe the Tape Selector Switches are also dirty, so the preemphasis is not correct ? The next problem can be, that Tapes like Maxell XL II or TDK SA are "modern" Chrom substitute Tapes which are not present in 79. For me all 3 Types of Tape sounds way off. Maybe you´ll do a Video of calibrating the Deck to Maxell XL-II ???

[@PeterMilanovski]

1. The bias wasn't adjusted while he was recording to match the tape to the deck. And 2. It's been sitting around for a long time and it's time to replace the capacitors!

[@radiologe9271]

@@PeterMilanovski adjusting the Bias is only one part of calibrating a Deck. There is more to adjust for a specific Type of Cassette Tape like recording level......With a 3 Head Deck it's not difficult to calibrate a Tapedeck for a specific Tape. Capacitors are not always a big Problem in electronics this age,but need attention

[@PeterMilanovski]

@@radiologe9271 while capacitors are not always a problem with equipment of this age, you would or should have noticed where he said that it's been in storage for a long time. This is exactly where the problem is with capacitors, yeah I know, I don't want to sound like one of those people whom scream change those things as soon as they see them but I do believe that I have good cause for saying so! I do all my own repairs myself so I have a lot of test equipment. Capacitors are a strange device that can be used for a lot of different applications but they also have a lot of different failure modes too! I have a thing for capacitors so basically I have a lot of them in all shapes and colours and sizes and styles, I have had what should have been brand new capacitors explode! And I couldn't understand why? So I went on a mission to find out why. My findings are what I believe to be that if a capacitor sits around, it kinda goes into a coma! They don't like to be woken up by instant full rated voltage across them, and you can always tell which one's they are because they start getting hot! If they are already installed then it's best to bring up the whole device slowly on a Variac or on a Laboratory power supply if the capacitor is out of circuit. It kind made sense to me because I have had equipment that was constantly being used for years and never had a problem but other equipment that sat around and only got used sometimes would die early! In this video you can hear the capacitors which are probably in the recording circuit, trying to wake up, the sound is very distorted at the beginning but they slowly began to come good! By the time a tape was swapped out for another one, the capacitors were back to square one and starting over again! When it comes to new capacitors, the popular values usually leave the factory and get to you fast and you never have a problem with them, but if it's a no name brand, it's possible that even the popular values could have been sitting around, if you know about this particular effect, you would know that before you install it, put it on the power supply and bring it up to rated voltage and make sure that it stopped passing current and you won't have any troubles with it! This is one of the reasons why some capacitors seem to last forever, the unit is always being used and they never get the chance to go into a coma, some of the older capacitors were way underated, that would be the same thing as taking out all the low voltage capacitors and replacing them with much higher voltage capacitors, you will get much more service life out of them.. My son not to long ago purchased a DAT machine that was supposed to be in fully working condition, we plugged it into a wattmeter and it was pulling more than the rated 20W power consumption and the transformer got really hot! It took a few days but the power consumption dropped dramatically and the transformer cooled down, it's a Sony ES and it's also about the same vintage as the cassette deck in this video! There's an old saying, use it or loose it.

[@danhefferland9834]

I had one of these but the Rec head went bad

[@PeterMilanovski]

How did you know that it was the record head that was bad? Did you measure it's inductance and found that it's different from the original specification?

[@danhefferland9834]

@@PeterMilanovski it went faulty on one channel. Did all the usual switch cleanings etc because the head measured as expected thought it couldn’t be that that was the problem but when I disconnected the head wires And connected them to the opposite channels The behaviour went to the other channel therefore I thought it was the head at fault

[@PeterMilanovski]

@@danhefferland9834 hmmm interesting, is the deck auto reverse? I have had a similar situation and the problem went away when the wires to the head were replaced.

[@johnb5519]

Good one.

[@rogerchurch3804]

thats surprising it has a metal tape setting u say ? realy its built in the so called golden age of stereo* they went the extra mile to make machines well with lots of real metal yea! its probly easy to service ?lots of circutry yea exrta mile !

[@12voltvids]

Many of those technics units were real bastards to service. I have an RSM275 and it is ugly

[@rogerchurch3804]

@@12voltvids oh man thats too bad on servicing .

[@SSSwilliams]

Smart👍

[@RetroMechanic]

You use china-made mp3-player to reference player... I think that 3-head deck and metal-tape can do much better job than that ;) I hope that you use next episode High quality CD-player. I like to watch your videos.

[@robsonsoave1805]

Excelente aparelho! Abç

[@davecooke914]

Tape deck is only as good as tape your using don't build them like that anymore