I have a sony TCS 430 stereo recorder and player with a permanant magnet as an erase head Can a permanant magnet erase head damage tape in play mode ? Can the magnetic field of the erase head harm the tape in play mode, even though it's not supposed to ? Thank you very much !
That's a good question. I have wondered the same thing myself, having an old boombox, with perm magnet erase head right over the cassette tape when playing all the time... lets see what the more knowledgeable people have to say!
Hi in my opinion yes... it can damage the recording if the mechanics that hold the magnet do not move it away from the tape as expected. That is, even if it does not physically touch the tape but remains close to it, it can erase it
the permanent magnet as erase head off course affects the information on the tape, but don't forget: the TCS-430 has neither been designed tas a high end product, nor is it made for music. it is a plain voice-recorder thingy with a frequency-range of an older telephone, so whatever affect that permanetn magnet has to the information on the tape, is negligible
well the TCS 430 has the same frequency range as the WM4 and I'm quite please with it, I'm just worried so damage my tapes.
Does it have "cue" and "review" ? Based on experience with another Sony my advice would be to not use those functions. I think that when you disengage them the inertia of the reels can cause the tape to loop out of the cassette and hit the erase head leaving a drop-out.
Use a metal tape. Most permanent erase heads are not good at all in erasing metal tapes. So if something mechanically goes wrong your tape contents might survive just fine
The problem is that when switching play/FF/REW, the tape will be attracted by the permanent erase head, causing serious erasure.
What unit is that ? On mine, the PM isn't as close as this one in the photo, but yes. Seems important no to mess around with PLAY/FF/REW without hitting stop. By the way, I made a test. On my Sony DC6 I recorded a 16khz signal on a tape. Next I used a spectrum analyser to report the level of the 16khz signal played in my D6C. I then played it about 20 times in my Sony TCS 430, and i was fiddling a lot with FF/ REW. Next thing I did was do the analysis again with the D6C only to find nothing had seem to change, the level at 16khz stayed exactly the same. So that's cheering me a bit, even if my measurements might have been done the wrong way.... Anyway Cheers !
On an related note, how do you think regarding transporting cassette tapes? These days there are magnets everywhere, on my iPad, iPad keyboard case even my phone wallet. What would be considered a safe distance from these items when packing them together with tapes in a bag?
