The capstan motor in my Akai reel to reel was running 3% slow for 8 years before I noticed

I was messing around with a strobe disc I bought at a thrift store for $5 and finally checked the speed on my Akai GX 4000D. Turns out the motor had drifted over time and I had been listening to everything just a tiny bit flat. I used some Deoxit on the speed pot and a tiny adjustment brought it back to 7.5 ips perfect. Has anyone else discovered their gear was running off speed for way longer than they realized?

2 comments

2 Comments

nelson.gavin17d ago

Man, that stings a bit (in a weird, audiophile way). Eight years is a long time to be listening to everything slightly off, especially when you think about all the records and tapes you probably heard during that period. I had a similar thing happen with a Dual turntable I bought used, where the pitch was subtly off for like two years before I finally compared it to a tuning app on my phone. It's wild how our ears can just... adapt to the wrong speed over time. Glad you caught it with a cheap strobe disc, that's a pretty great $5 find.

william32017d ago

Honestly I'm not sure it's that deep, people act like a slightly off turntable ruined their whole music experience when half the records from back then weren't even recorded perfectly anyway.