My cassette deck is folding the tape!

I have a brand new, sealed Prince cassette which I was using for reference, as it was quite good quality and prince was sensitive about end user sound quality.

Anyway, I was ready to blast my Toshi today to see how it plays... But the prince tape wouldn't play!
I took a look and saw that the reels are spun tight but one real has baggy tape on the inside.

I spun the tape to see the section and it was folded in two or three! :O

This is not the first tape destroyed in this deck. I had an old A-Ha tape which was wowing a lot so when it got chewed up, I blamed it on the tape.
Now, I think there's something wrong with how my cassette player spins them in after playing the section.

Any ideas please?

Otherwise, tape deck sounds fine, even the a-ha tape plays wonderfully around the middle, where it's not wrinkled. Quite good quality sound...

The prince tape is totally dead, as I've spun it all over the baggy tape and I think the creases have printed on all of the reel, as the tape looks uneven throughout. It sounds horrible

Yep, it's done it again! I put a brand new maxell XL II, rewound it, pushed play and "@#%$@%^", the tape is now chewed up...

As you can see, it's starting to chew from one side. This side is the one facing towards me:

sound like pinch problems to me

Is there someone who fixes this kinda stuff in the south east?

Tip:
Always use an old tape as a test tape before trying to play your pride & joy! I keep plenty of disposable tapes to hand such as wannabees who should have stayed in bed on the recording day, Cliff Richard, artists that mention 'jesus', 'praise', 'lord' etc.. I've never lost a good tape yet.

I didn't have a disposable tape until now
BTW, I've read playing wrinkled tapes is bad - why?

Yeh I have a pile of good tapes with awful music on for testing

Mustey said:

Any ideas please?

Click to expand...

Play a test tape for a few seconds and watch the reels, are they both moving 100% of the time, and at the same speed? Belts get loose over the years and the one for the takeup reel might be slipping and causing the sag, and the tape to bunch up.

The one-sided damage may just be a byproduct of this. If the tape starts to get forced into the deck because the takeup reel is misbehaving, the tape will just start to veer off on its own into the deck, passing through the capstan/tire at worse and worse angles until it starts to run off the end of the capstan pin, which would be the side nearest to you.

I'd also check for debris on the capstan and tire, if it's uneven it may be able to walk the tape off course.

might be too much take up torque
place it on play with no tape
and check the pull on the spindle
compare with a good deck

Pinch roller 100%

Rimmer36 said:

Pinch roller 100%

Click to expand...

I agree seen this before. Clean the rubber pinch roller and also check the spring is providing enough pressure on the capsan shaft.