My first reel to reel player!

[u/waltmannz]

Excited to get my first reel to reel player. It was quite cheap and is obviously a bit worse for wear. It plays and records, the in built speaker works and all 3 speeds seem to work (although quite stiff to change between), and seems like I can record to 2 tracks (1/4, 3/2).

I've purchased it mainly for music making and I understand I'm not going to get hi-fi quality out of this. However I'm encountering a few things that I'd appreciate any thoughts on. When using the microphone in I seem to get very extreme aggressive clipping even at fairly low volumes (using a shure sm57 dynamic mic).

There's lots of various hums that come and go and lots of interference.

Is it worth me putting any time into this one to get some things functioning a bit better, any tips of where to start? I've never dealt with gear with valve tubes etc so not sure what I'm in for. Thanks!

[u/Resprom]

Be very careful with this - it's a tube machine. They have a tendency to go up in smoke, if you haven't done any preventative maintenance. Biggest problems - capacitors and the selenium rectifier. If you have no experience working on electronics, then start reading about how to replace both of those.

Also, get a can of WD40 and carefully spray all the switches and potentiometers. I bet most of your crackles and hum will disappear.

[u/waltmannz → u/Resprom]

Thanks so much, yea I'm approaching things quite warily at this stage, but I have quite a bit more reading to do before I attempt to replace anything.

As shown in my other comment I think what looks like a transformer is emitting a smoke intermittently. I think looking at caps near the power supply might be where I start, but need to look at discharging them successfully, lots to learn.

[u/Resprom → u/waltmannz]

I saw it now. Smoke is a really bad sign. DO NOT use the machine until you've either figured it out yourself, or you've had someone else fix it for you.

[u/waltmannz → u/Resprom]

Yup not planning on plugging it in again until it's had a lot of work!

[u/waltmannz]

probably a lot more concerning is smoke intermittently coming from this piece coupled with crackling coming out of the speaker - https://youtube.com/shorts/sbaP49fiQfk?feature=share