Need help with old reel to reel tapes....????

Question

I have a lots of old family tapes that are reel to reel. They are 1/4 inch wide. I recently purchased a reel to reel recorder from Ebay to play them on. The manual says its a 4 track recorder. It is a Sony TC-260 player.

Okay here's the catch. I have an old Eddie Arnold reel to reel tape and it plays fine on it. Great sound from both sides so the tape player has no problems.

The home recorded reel to reel I want to play seems like they play one side correctly but pick up the sounds from the other side of the tape and it sounds like the other track is playing backwards.

Now if I unplug one side of the line out or turn the volume down on one side then I can get one side to play correct but it still sounds as if I'm not getting all of the recorded sound.

More to come... to this question in just a second.

Answer 1

Hello Tina,

I know just what you are talking about as I have seen the same issue with tapes I have tried to play.  There is nothing wrong with your reel-to-reel and you don't have to get another one.  

The problem is that the tapes are so old and thin... one side is bleeding onto the other.   There is nothing you can do about it.  The quality of the professional tape is much better than the quality of the tapes they produced for home use.  

Hope that helps.

Answer 2

I believe the problem is that you more then likely have 4 heads reading a tape designed for one.

The tape recorder you bought was designed for four tracks of music to be laid down and then mixed.

If you can find a way to only turn on one of the heads, disable the other 3, I think you will solve your problem. You may have to turn 1,3,4 off. You may have to turn off 3 and 4.

This is more along the lines of what you wanted

http://cgi.ebay.com/TEAC-A-4010-S-REEL-T...