r/cassetteculture

Hello everyone, I’m having a huge problem with the album “London Calling” by The Clash on cassette. When playing it in my Walkman model WM-F45, it starts to play just fine but it slowly begins to play slower and sound terrible. I played it on my modern GPO Brooklyn boombox and it plays absolutely fine with no issues. I then played it on my Conion C-100f boombox and it sounded super scratchy. The cassette itself looks like it’s in great condition. This is especially weird to me because I bought the exact same cassette before this and it was having almost the exact same problem this one has where it sounds terrible on 80s stuff but fine on modern stuff. The Walkman and Conion have been professionally cleaned and do not have this problem with any other cassette. Am I just super unlucky or is there something notorious about this album on cassette that I do not know about? If anyone has any advice or better yet a way to fix this problem without actually cracking the cassette open please let me know. Thank you so much

This album hits in all forms… all time banger! A birthday present to myself all the way from Ukraine!

Stumbled upon the entire Journey Time collection at a thrift store, put in the first tape and it wouldn't spin (couldn't see if this was tangled up before I put it in) and it fell off the roll inside the tape. How do I fix this? Even my dad doesn't know and he grew up with these LOL

EDIT: THANKS EVERYONE!! I am going home from work and immediately going to try and fix this, lol! Sad news is the tape is already crumpled at the bottom you can see it when you look into it, but maybe most of the tape can be saved, just hope it's not on my favorite song! :)

Hey there!

I got this unit for free. I’ve been using it to play cassette tapes. I don’t have a lot of experience listening to cassettes, so it seemed fine to me. However, I was recently told this unit isn’t good for music playback.

If I am using just the music playback function, should I look into another unit? If so, what’s a decent and affordable one?

Thanks in advance!

I had to Frankenstein this together between 3 separate partially working units, but I finally was able to get one fully working! After a lot of trial and error figuring out which parts from which units were working properly, and fully soldering in and out each board, all of the functions are finally working as intended. The last bit was figuring out how to adjust the playback speed. I had a hard time finding any clear info regarding this, so I figured I would make a post for reference for anyone looking in the future (pictures for reference).

There are two adjustment points. One being a flat plastic screw on the plate covering the flywheel. The other being a small potentiometer [technically] accessable in the battery compartment bay. You do have to have the player apart partially to adjust the speed (unless you have the proper DC power plug in, which I don't) because the battery pack covers the adjustment pot.

Once the back panel is off you can rig up the battery contacts to the battery pack outside of the casing. The potentiometer there is the electrical speed adjustment. It's very small and delicate. I had to use the sharp end of a razor blade to adjust it because none of my flat heads were small or narrow enough to fit.

The plastic screw on the flywheel plate will adjust how much friction, or how "tight" the flywheel is. I had to go back and forth several times between the two before I hit the sweet spot in their adjustments to get the right speed.

I've had this thing apart and back together so many times, it's actually kind of crazy that it's all working now. It's a great looking sounding vintage player!

**CLAIMED**
That was quick. I had this on a fb group for weeks and no action.

I have this j card up for grabs if anyone is looking for it. I had gotten a box set and when I got home I realized it was missing a cassette. I had to repurchase that cassette and put it into the box. I have this j card left over. Shoot me a message if you need it and will cover shipping. I’m sure I can also just put it into a greeting card and send as regular mail.

Idly browsing the Cash Converters website (as you do) and their branch at Kingstanding in Birmingham seems to have a job lot of NOS, sealed Elcaset cassettes. 11 in total. Priced between £40 and £60.

It appears that not every one ended up in Finland after all. Some Brummie contrarian was obviously taken with this obscure format.

I found this casette along with some more tapes in an abandoned recording studio where different artists gathered there to record songs, i tried to search info about this tape but had no luck at all, It seems that they're almost unknown

I hope eBay counts! Another one for my growing collection. Such great condition as well, I’m quite happy!

RIP Frank Beard! (A man with no beard)

Released to promote Rid of Me.
These are called Advanced Tapes. Still keeping them until today.
What’s your favourite single by her ?

The title explains it all really. This is a Realistic CTR-55 Model 14-1005. I replaced melted belts and the capstan just moves clockwise jamming the supply reel. Attached is a photo of the belt drive. The far pulley is the motor, the closest white one is the idler wheel, and the black flywheel is the capstan. Anyone have any idea what the problem may be?

Wouls this be a good buy?

Not being a smart ass here, I’m genuinely asking. I just picked up this box of 36 “decoration only” cassette tapes from a seller for $10 on fb marketplace. I kept asking her what she meant by for decoration only and she said that you can’t record on them. The funny thing is that earlier in the week I got a Pink Floyd wish you were here cassette and it’s playing super slow or not at all even after a cleaning. I think it needs new friction sheets. Now here we are….

So I took the gamble and grabbed them. They seem to be fully functional shells with screws, with friction sheets, and an intact pressure pad. There is no tape in them, but there seems to be leader tape attached to the spools and the little wheels move as well. Can anyone identify these? I’m not sure if I’m an idiot and they cannot be used or if I hit a re-shell goldmine.

Are these legitimate replacement shells that I can just use? Please lemme know!

I understand this topic has probably been discussed lots here but I'm a tad confused about it all. I've always thought my tapes were moldy but others have suggested that it's just the tapes age and the coatings on it are shedding off. The picture there is from playing one song from Tina Turners Simply The Best.

During winter this issue rarely happens, it might happen a tiny bit but not noticeable but because it's the summer a lot of my tapes are having this issue. None have white spots on them through the little windows though. Am I missing something?

Hi so this thing is my baby and recently i acquired a few reel to reel metal tapes for it because it looks pretty awesome now a friend of mine asked me that question and that's something i never thought about is it something that happens since metal tape is more abrasive?

had to put my boombox to use… im still a baby collector, but i love them! cassettes sound so much better than digital! idk, i feel like they have such good depth to them. you can hear all the instruments so well.

Started my new collection. Haven’t bought cassettes in decades and editing the hunt. Going to be focused on 90s Hip Hop (and artists I know). Looking forward to getting back all the tapes I had growing up.