Hello! I recently purchased a Sony WM-EX631 But when I go to play tapes, the first few songs sound like they are being played at a fast speed (chipmunk sounding) then after it plays cassettes normally. I’ve cleaned the capstans, pinch rollers and the playback head. The speed control on the cassette player is neither on the fast or slow setting. any suggestions? Thanks in advance!
Sounds like a loose belt, or a belt that has been sitting in the player and not been used and therefore has formed to the parked position and therefore has formed itself to the layout or routing of the player. So if you put in a new belt and let it sit for a few years it will also form to the routing of the belt layout but not go bad. But when you do go to play it, it will have the ability to speed up or slow down when the formed belt is not straight and has a curve in it when it's supposed to be going straight and the other way around. So you will get weird sound or the motor is trying to compensate for the formed belt. That's not straight. Bottom line changed the belt and then see if you have the same issue. I guarantee you it will probably go away. Other than that you got more issues
Thank you for the reply! I checked the site and found my belt, is a speed adjustment necessary after replacing the belt? is there anything else you need to do besides the speed adjustment?
Speed adjustment made me necessary. I do not know how to do it on your model even though I do have one because I have not repaired mine. Normally you should not need to adjust the speed after simply changing the belt. I am guessing that you got this used and with it being used it has an old belt in it and once the belt is changed it should sound a lot better. I do not have the service manual for this model and I don't know where you can get the service manual for this, but you can try archive.org and search there for the service manual to see about the speed adjustment if necessary after you change the belt and play it. For me, since I have so many walkmans to choose from to play, I only play one at a time until it breaks and then I simply get another one and play it until it breaks. Or that is after I've changed the belt and it breaks. Then I just got another machine. Put a new belt in it. Play it until it breaks so that's where I'm at. If this is your only machine to play cassettes with then you need to go all out all out and get the service manual. Get a belt, replace the belt and then listen to it and then if it doesn't sound right, find out about how to adjust speed if needed by getting the service manual. It has been my experience that just changing the belt will be sufficient and you won't need to get the service manual. But that's up to you. Good day!
I ordered my belt so now its the waiting game. ill report back with a PM if thats okay with you. I do have an extra cassette player, its a WM-fx290 but i really wanna fix this one, since its a bit more slimmer than the FX290. Thanks again!
Fx290 I don't think I have that but I don't know what it looks like because there's no picture in this thread. But here is a picture of the ex631 because there's so much talk about this model. Here's another fresh picture Like I said, I'm a visual person and I may have a 290 model and not know it because I have over 100 Sony walkmans. Not too many are identical except for the wm10 models of which I have 15 or 20. I'm not sure and then I have a lot of the f10s and then everything else is individual. After that I might have twofers of the high-end models.
SO i finally got the time to switch out the bands on my Walkman, at first it worked like a charm but after a few songs it went back to sounding sped up.
Can you adjust the speed on the front of the unit back to normal, when your tape gets into speed up mode? And once you do if you can adjust the speed, does it stay at that speed or does it increase more or does it run down slower?
Yes i adjusted the speed but it did not help, To be honest i think that dial might not even work, because each time i try to adjust the speed it never does anything.
In regard to speed adjustment, if the belt is right usually the speed shouldn't need a lot of adjustment. In the majority of cases, assuming there's nothing else wrong, the speed should be close to spec without adjusting it. @Quartersnax Please post a screenshot with WFGUI reading. Which pot doesn't do anything: the internal or external ones ? Or both ?
Thanks for replying, and sorry for the delay. I don’t know what WFGUI is. I also don’t know what PoT I’m guessing it has to do with speed adjustment? If that’s what it is then, it’s the external speed adjustment dial that doesn’t seem to do anything when I move it.
WFGUI I have no idea what that means either but pot is short for the word potentiometer or volume control, as people don't want to try to spell that word or sit there and type it all out because it's so many letters so they use the word pot LOL
WFGUI is a software to measure wow&flutter and measure/adjust tape speed. It can be downloaded here (first link): http://www.ant-audio.co.uk/index.php?cat=post&qry=library For measurement a 3kHz or 3.15kHz test tape is needed. This can be bought here: https://fixyouraudio.com/product/speed-calibration-tape/ Yes, by pot I was reffering to the potentiometer. All cassette players and recorders have an internal potentiometer to adjust the speed, but this EX631 also has an external adjustment. To me it was unclear which of the 2 make no difference, hence why I asked the question.
