I have a Panasonic RQ-E15V. I know it's not exactly top of the line but it is the piece of technology I've had in my possession the longest. I bought this with my own allowance money when I was 10 years old around the year 2000. Here's the issue, I took this out of the drawer after a couple years of hibernation. The auto reverse was more like auto stop and occasionally it wouldn't play at all without me manually moving the spindles to help things all along a bit. I figured it was time to replace the belts after 20 plus years of ownership. Most importantly, when it did play, the wow and flutter was fine (everything sounded normal). I replaced the two belts inside without too much hassle. I selected belts that were slightly smaller than the belts that were removed. I figured the old belt had gotten loose over the years so it was best to use something slightly smaller. Now mechanically it seems to be working a lot better. The auto reverse works just fine and the overall torque of the spindles seems a lot better. The issue is the wow and flutter. It sounds like the speed is okay but the pitch is all over the place. Can someone please give me some advice on how to move forward from here?
Given you say you chose a "slightly smaller" belt than the original one makes me think you used a belt from a generic pack of many belts (I'm thinking of those cheap ones on ebay that are sold 50 pcs for 3$). If that is the case, there's almost a guarantee that is your problem as those generic belts are cut very uneven creating a lot of wow&flutter. I measured between 0.8% - 1% WRMS on the better ones selected from suck packs, a figure which will make any walkman completely unusable. My recommendation is to buy a belt specifically made for your walkman, which will cost significantly more but it's the only proper fix. This is the belt that I recommend for your unit: https://fixyouraudio.com/product/belt-panasonic-rq-e15v/ Depending of how thick the original belt is you may find a quality generic replacement with the same diameter as the original. However, a good quality one will cost at least 2-3$/pcs if you don't buy in bulk. Usually, generic 1mm and 1.2mm thickness belts can be found in good quality. However, 0.5mm-0.8mm are very hard to find as a generic belt. Of course, least but not last: a lubrication of the mechanism is always a good idea: capstan bearing and table reels being the most important. I have a guide on lubricating the capstan bearing: https://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/how-to-lubricate-the-capstan-bearing.7260/ However, I do not believe this is causing your problem, it's just something that can improve the wow&flutter even further, approaching the original specification. P.S.: I also recommend checking this thread for more in-depth info about wow&flutter: https://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/wow-and-flutter-my-know-how.19/
Thanks so much Valentin. You're right that I did buy a assorted bag of belts from Amazon. I did see listings for model specific belts but I figured the price increase was due to someone having to hand select the size of the belt and package it rather than quality. However since you say that fixyouraudio.com is a reputable source I will go ahead and order my belts from there. Additionally, I will go ahead and lubricate the mechanism.
An assorted bag of 20-30 good quality belts would likely cost more than $50, although I didn't see any packs like this for sale. At that point it's obvious it would only make sense to buy such a kit if you're regularly servicing walkmans, otherwise a single belt or belt kit would be cheaper. An example is this 13 belt kit from fixyouraudio: https://fixyouraudio.com/product/set-of-13-belts-for-walkmans/ It's ~20$ and it only includes 13 belts. It's a kit that I used, but I found myself often needing more than one belt of a particular size, at which point more than one bag is needed. Those made by Marian Mihokm (fixyouraudio) are almost all (except for those sold by diameter) custom made to a specific unit and were tried and tested until the wow&flutter was in spec. That is why they cost so much, becuase there's a lot of R&D behind those belts. There are others who make custom belts, like DeckTech and mindset4lot on ebay, but all are pretty much in the same ballpark when it comes to cost. Another aspect of the good quality belts is longevity: the rubber compound is made so the belts last 20 years or even more.
That is a good price and very nicely described for walkman belts https://fixyouraudio.com/product/set-of-13-belts-for-walkmans/ Item name: Walkman belts – set of 13 belts for Sony Aiwa Panasonic Walkman belts – set of 13 belts for Sony Aiwa Panasonic are made professionally using injection molding, compression molding, CNC processing, etc. Selected material is of very good quality. Set contains 13 new cassette walkman belts of different sizes suitable for most walkmans and personal cassette players of various brands, like Sony, Panasonic, Aiwa, Sharp, Kenwood. The majority of belts offered here on eBay are too thick and therefore unusable. Belts in this set (internal diameter * thickness in mm) 18*0.5 used as counter belt 22*0.5 used in Panasonic, Aiwa players, or as counter belt in some models 26*0.5 used as counter belt 30*0.5 used in Panasonic, Aiwa players, or as counter belt in some models 36*0.9 used in D6C, TPS-L2 44*0.8 used in WM-2, TPS-L2, DD1 series 47*0.65 used in WM-10 series 52*0.6 used in most plastic Sony WM-EX, FX players 58*0.6 used in slim Sony models, but also in Panasonic models 64*0.6 used in many slim models from Sony, Panasonic RQ-S… 67*0.6 used in later Sony slim models, like WM-EX1 70*0.6 used in early slim models, like WM-701C 74*0.6 used in expensive slim models, also in some Panasonic late models
