Hey all. Looking for a mirror cassette. I have a few cassette decks that need adjusting. Anyone have a spare mirror cassette that they are willing to sell? I'm located in Australia so willing to pay for postage. Regards, buzbox
No, it is not. It is a cassette with a cutout thru the tapeguide with a mirror glued to the backside to check for mechanical alignment of the heads and pinchrollers. There are few available on eBay (wish I knew why would you need them in different tape thickness!): ABEX Mirror Cassette Test Tape/TCC-903 Tape Thinkness 0.009mm TEAC Mirror Cassette Test Tape/MTT-902 Tape Thinkness 0.012mm ABEX Mirror Cassette Test Tape/TCC-901 Tape Thinkness 0.018mm
A few years back there was a heated discussion on the usefulness of mirror cassettes here: TAPEHEADS Unfortunately, the guy who wanted to offer one with internal illumination got discouraged by the community
You can make one quite easily yourself. Create the tape from a common cassette with a good shell (Most TDK D), and buy the thinnest plastic/mylar mirror sheet you could find that provides a clean reflection and is thick enough to hold its shape well. (I used leftover mirror sheet from a Tamiya display case). Next, snap/cut off the area on the head/capstan/pinch roller of Side A making sure that all the pins that guide the tape are on Side B and are intact. Insert and glue tiny squares of mirror sheet at a 45 degree angle to the tape surface- you may need to modify the shell a little to do so. That's it! You can also cut out 1 long rectangle like those Abex/Teacs, but you'll need to modify the shell even more. With different tape thickness, you can look for skew in machines more sensitive to certain types of tape- I have a Panasonic that only skews on one model of tape, for example.
