Wow. I cannot begin to express how happy i am to have stumbled upon the forum-- both for its generous community and the extraordinary wealth of accumulated knowledge that can be found here. So, a very big thank you to you all. As for me, the very short version is I've spent most of my adult life working variously--and sometimes simultaneously--in the contemporary art world, feature journalism, and music. And remain more a reasonably discerning accumulator of good work tools than any sort of collector. Of late I've been focused on cassettes. As for the unexpected journey that led me here--over the past few months (incident to my return to songwriting, performing and some recording about a year ago) I've finally turned to getting about three decades of accumulated both analog and obsolete digital audio equipment back into sound shape (so to speak) and working order, along with trying to tame a pretty vast jumble of recorded music and interviews in formats ranging from reel-to-reel tape and cassettes to mini-discs and CDs, as well as who knows how many digital files stashed on HDs (including a great many multi-track recordings that can only be played using long obsolete "professional" software). And so, in due course, it came time for my ominously clicking Sony WM-D3 (bought new in Venice Italy in the early 1990s) to get some long overdue love, maintenance, and repair. And then, even more recently, the pursuit of a D6 to call my own. As to this, I am especially grateful to Deb64 for her expert advice--especially about powering them safely (and some of the more ominous symptoms of misuse).
Welcome! You sound like my DJ buddy, he's got boxes of old interviews on DAT with everyone famous from the late 80's to the early 2000's. He said once he digitizes them I can have the DAT players but he's been saying that for years. I think we all dodged a bullet with how long the cassette media has lasted. I expect 20% of my R2R to be goo but most of my old cassettes will play without an issue. I don't think DAT will last forever and you have clean it much more often. Good luck with your equipment, please post any of it, we love seeing that kind of stuff.
