Back in the days (90's mostly) I was a TDK monomaniac, I've never bought any other tape brand. Nowadays I'm having all sorts of problems with TDK tapes (both old and sealed new): the tape appears to be stickier than other and while that is not a problem with tape deck with strong transport, walkman's have definitely a higher W&F. rails: I have many cassettes with evident rails on the tape as a result of the manufacturing process including a heavy calendering to minimise surface roughness. TDK D seems to be immune from those problems, but SA, SF, CDing II, DJ 2, all have those issues to varying degree. On the other hand, *any* Sony tape I have tried does not have the slightest problem, from HF to Metal-XR. As a result I tend not to use TDK anymore favouring other brands. Is it just me or you also have problems with TDK ? bye Enrico
Enrico, I'm having also lots of problems with TDK SA, SA-X and other from this brand, mainly rails. This problems seem to not appear on SONY tapes. With Maxell XL-II I'm usually having problems of transport (some wow) both on walkmans and decks. SONY tapes seem to be the best choice, with the UX and UX-S being the best compromise between qualilty and price.
My old SA's are still good but i had a bunch of mid 1990's ones and they all have playing problems which i cant fix.
If you check the tape surface it should appear smooth; a rail is line you see on the tape surface as if the tape had been folded. It is actually a sign of stress on the polyester substrate of the tape; it is the result of heavy compression (calendering) during manufacturing and the pull force by capstan and take-up reel during repeated play's. This tape (a TDK DJ2) has very evident rails The high frequency response of this tape, especially on side B, is very deteriorated.
I got that tape with a batch of used Sony tapes (which are indeed fine) so I do not know when the rails developed. I have rails on other TDK tapes I bought decades ago and used them a lot over time. New tapes however do not have that issue, at least not immediately, rails is a symptom of bad ageing. New TDK tapes, at least in my case, might be affected by the other problem, the sticky tape causing high wow&flutter.
In my case, rails aren't in the tape originally. They appear after playing, even in a hign end deck with excellent transport.
Yep I'm having the same issue with older brand new SA series cassettes. Gets so back sometimes it starts chewing up the tape. Have no issues with any others. Very weird.
I have just found this thread I have a few Sony Metal ES tapes which have railed.. I thought my decks were misaligned, so I got an M-300 style jig to check it, it was perfect... I changed the pinch rollers, belt everything and could never understand why the tapes were railed. Only now I see its a manufacturing fault with the cassettes themselves.. I feel relieved I always thought it was strange because I have 10+ Maxell MX and 20+ TDK MA and they are all perfect, the tape looks brand new. Wow.
I have a bunch of later 1990's SAs and they have the problem where W&F makes them now unusable. Of course years back when they were new they performed perfectly. All of my other SAs early 1990s and 1980s tapes work fine. I guess it was a quality issue in the later 1990s?
It is the first report I have of rail problems on a Sony tape (also a Type IV!). All my Sony tapes do not have rails, even those mistreated when I was a teenager. For a tape deck to cause rails it needs to be heavily misaligned, you would have noticed it on any tape. As for TDK, the stick tape problem (causing high W&F), to my knowledge, it happens randomly: I only have it on a bunch of TDK super CDing II from late 90's and on TDK SF from mid 90's. Other TDK tapes from the same years are perfectly fine.