In my limited experience, the cheap mechanisms always go out of alignment or break. I'm too young to have owned any new auto-reverse equipment, but all the used decks, be they portable or fixed, have issues related to azimuth. Sounds play back differently in regards to both balance and the amount of treble, causing playback deficiencies. On my current favorite unit, I find I must kick treble up a few DB, leave dolby nr off, and
only play in reverse. My current taping deck, a Tascam no less, plays a few DB quieter in one channel on well A.

Perhaps it's coincidence, but I've just not seen these issues on non-autoreverse equipment - not even brands like GPX or Audiophase!

On another note, a balance control would rectify many of the problems of bad alignment of source and/or playback deck. Why ever didn't Walkmen include them? I'd trade Dolby for a lousy balance slider any day.

Welcome to the fun and games of Audio Cassettes, that's why we all got so excited when the Compact Disc was invented (I did!).

It helps to keep the Heads clean but once the Head gets quite a bit of wear on it the sound is never the same. The better quality Heads, like in the WM-D6C and WM-DC2 tend to be a lot better, of course the Cassette plays a big role here because as it wears you get sound drop outs and the balance drifts, time for a new Cassette then!

I've also found Autoreverse decks to be more of a problem when it comes to Head Alignment. Analogue formats tend to suffer from one or another mechanical ailment but when they work well the sound is superior to digital formats, even to this day.

Even so, I still enjoy listening to my old Cassettes.

Greg

I see your point.

@gregory...

Any clue how long it takes for a cheap head like that employed in a basic branded Walkman to wear out? I thought I once read it was in the thousands, but it sounds like you're implying it's a far lower number. I thought head wear was mostly an issue with lumbering r2r equipment and type IV media - live and learn?

Also, I once read a post on Usenet that claimed the average consumer hifi tape deck would go out of alignment in about forty hours of use! Just thought I'd pass that anecdote along, bundled with a shaker of salt.

Most cassette players worked very good when new.
but companies dident expect them to be around this long

It's certainly an issue alright. That said the position of the heads can usually be tweaked. Even the heads on my fairly recent kitchen/bedroom unit a Sony cmt m100 has access points for tape head tweakery! Also when done, you can lock down the screws holding the heads using a little thread lock (OEM stuff is often green/red). Have you experimented with changing the position of the heads on any machine that's causing an issue?

The wear on the heads I speak of are from when I was young and played my Walkman to death! It was also a cheap Walkman which took lots of abuse, you know what kids are like :-). It wore a groove in the head which you could feel with your finger nail when running it over the head.

It does take a very long time to wear in a groove and it's almost impossible with the tougher heads like the one in the WM-D6C (Laser Amorphous Head). I did find that my Autoreverse Cassette deck wasn't always aligned on both sides (A/B) so I used to record only on side A to keep the alignment consistent, I tried to readjust it but never managed to get it perfect. It seemed to drift from time to time. The head on the cassette deck rotated when changing sides, not like a Walkman where the head is fixed and has 4 tracks on it so perhaps the Walkmans are better in this regard.

I'm not ready to brave such chicanery with my Tascam yet, but I suppose I'll see if my Aiwa can't be re-aligned somehow. Only problem is, looks like it needs to come apart in full before I can gain access O_O

Anyone by any chance know where I could find information on an Aiwa HS-t360 from the late 80's

Well, that was easy. Took a small screwdriver, slid it into a screw slot, and turned until satisfied. No dissasembly needed. Now I know! Too bad the deck still sounds a bit muffled when using Dolby. I'll have to try demagnetizing the head, I suppose.

Should use a head alignment tape
to get a good alignmet.
A pre-recorded tape can be used
by listening for highest treble on the tape.