Richard Hess has always been a reliable and generous source of info to me, and I have successfully dealt with Soft Binder Syndrome by using his suggestion of putting tape deck and tape in a refrigerator. Big kitchen fridge worked better, I believe because smaller 3 cu ft just didn't have the strength to keep up with deck heating up and even brief door openings easily letting out much of the cool air. http://richardhess.com/notes/2007/03/21/soft-binder-syndrome-and-sticky-shed-syndrome/ I love Nakamichi CR-7A decks for a number of reasons, but one of them is that I don't have to fix cassette pressure pads that fell apart. That deck, and at least the CR-3A as well, push those pads out of the way anyway, and instead rely on the dual capstans to better maintain the right pressure between tape and head. Karl Fitzke Audio/Visual Specialist 214 Olin Library Ithaca, NY 14853 607-255-5521 [log in to unmask] ________________________________ From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Dan Gediman <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 12:57:44 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [ARSCLIST] Question about baking cassette audio tapes Folks, I am a documentary radio producer working on a project where I need to digitize a half-dozen consumer cassette tapes of interviews conducted in the early 90s. I have not yet seen these tapes, but I�m trying to prepare ahead of time for likely problems I might encounter with trying to play these old tapes, which have been been stored in anything like optimum conditions (they have been in a shoebox in a closet without even plastic boxes to protect them). The main problems I have had in the past with old pro-quality cassettes of my own has been mechanical (the pads dry out/fall out and I have at times needed to transfer the tapes to a new shell). But I have also encountered tapes that are completely jammed and won�t play at all and also high-pitched squealing on playback. I have been following the recent discussion about various kinds of problems that befall RTR tapes, but my question is do the same problems happen with cassette tapes from the post-70s era and are the remedies the same (baking in a dehydrator for a TBD amount of time)? I�m assuming there are some unique problems dealing with archival cassettes, and I�d love to know what what symptoms to look for, and what is the state of the art in terms of how to deal with them. I�m sure this has been discussed in the past. If anyone can direct me to any articles online or previous posts on the subject, I would be greatly appreciative. All the best, Dan Dan Gediman 502 299-2565 [log in to unmask] www.dangediman.com<http://www.dangediman.com> <http://www.dangediman.com/> [http://dangediman.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Fishing-the-Arno-1.jpg]<http://www.dangediman.com/> Dan Gediman<http://www.dangediman.com/> www.dangediman.com Dan Gediman is a long-time public radio producer whose work has been heard on All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Marketplace, Jazz Profiles, and This American Life. ...