I am new to all of this but I recently bought a bag of assorted belts online. I replaced the belts on my old WM-FX241 and a nos WM-FX195. My belts are all 1mm square belts. My best tapes play well but the wow and flutter when playing many of my cassettes is horrible. I actually thought the batteries were going dead last night playing a new tape that I just recorded. The tape is fine in other players but not in the fx-195. I just ordered the right belts from FixYourAudio. How much of a difference do Y'all think the correct belts will make? Thanks a lot, Gene
Belts are huge and the assortments are hit or a big miss. They are a really important part of the transport and I'm sure the last thing a manufacturer wanted was a high "bad belt" return rate on new units, pretty much killing any profit. Russell Industries (also known as PBR) still makes and supplies most USA Retailers, at least as far as I can tell. Their website is copywrited 1998 but they are still in business and if you dig deep into the website through a bunch of links, you can find the master belt catalogs. https://www.russellind.com/ Turntable Needles has been good to me when my stock doesn't have a belt I need but I don't see either of your units listed, I'm pretty sure they resell Russell Belts. https://www.turntableneedles.com/ Even new belts can be an issue, they still fell flexible but they get hard and slide on the pulleys, sometimes Rubber Renue can extend the life if a replacement isn't easily found.
I don't understand why this topic isn't given its own sub-forum or FAQ or something? In all the old, second hand, audio equipment I bought, belt was problem. Its obvious, they have limited lifespan, they wear out even more than capacitors or that rubber roller. They have to be replaced, yet the key information about them (size) is being kept like some 'guild secret'. None of the sellers would give that simple information. You have to tear the bloody thing down to the smallest bit, in hope to correctly guess the size from remnants. I know they have to make some money but that is just ridiculous in this day and age. There should be a database of all the mechanisms (from what I could gather, many models or even manufacturers used same mechanisms) and their belts?
What most people do is buy a set of belts. Take the player apart and try out which one fits best. The fact that there are suppliers selling belts for a specific model is, I think, quite new. Cassette players have also become much more popular, so there must be money to be made in it. There used to be lists of players and belt sizes, but if you already have a selection of belts, I never looked at them.
