Akai Ad-6300 head to Boombox

[hghareeb]

Hi,

I’ve acquired recently a 4 pins Play/Rec. tape head belongs to Akai Ad-6300 tape deck, In excellent condition, I thought of replacing my old tiered Boombox Aj-520 head with this one, the 520 head has a small tiny CB attached on the bottom with 6 wires terminals and 6 wires attached, while the new head has only 4 pins,, I thought of giving it a try and connect the 6 wires to the 4 pins for somehow ,, it worked ,, yes it worked and it sounds great but its not recording ,the main wires out of the system is brown and white for L/R each has 3 wires white/pink/black , i tried to cancel the black to connect it to 4 pins head but the was noticeably low when i attached and soldered the black wire with the white it worked great but it doesn’t record ..

Any thoughts?

 

[hopey]

Do you really need to record? Usually boxes have separate rec and play heads sounds you need to find an all in one.

 

[Superduper]

Your new head is incompatible with the old one. The new head is a standard head, whereas the old one has dual coils for each channel. On normal systems during playback, the head, when excited by a magnetic signal crossing the coils will send a signal to the amplification circuit which is then amplified. That same head will record a signal when the circuit switches modes and passes a bias current with the signal to be recorded through that same coil. Much of this switching is performed by the Record/Playback switch (record bar).

But if you look at the schematic for that Akai, you will see that the head has what appears to be a center tapped coil, which explains the 6 wires vs. 4. So rather than the same coil receiving reverse current to switch modes, the recording current is sent through a different winding of the coil. You will only be able to either record or playback with the new head but not both since your boombox circuitry does not support the use of a 4-wire head.

 

[hghareeb]

Do you really need to record? Usually boxes have separate rec and play heads sounds you need to find an all in one.

Yaa, Recording is important to me, and I like boomboxes it's easier to manage, Move and portable as well, most of them come in a single Pb/Rec head unfortunately.

 

[hghareeb]

Your new head is incompatible with the old one. The new head is a standard head, whereas the old one has dual coils for each channel. On normal systems during playback, the head, when excited by a magnetic signal crossing the coils will send a signal to the amplification circuit which is then amplified. That same head will record a signal when the circuit switches modes and passes a bias current with the signal to be recorded through that same coil. Much of this switching is performed by the Record/Playback switch (record bar).

But if you look at the schematic for that Akai, you will see that the head has what appears to be a center tapped coil, which explains the 6 wires vs. 4. So rather than the same coil receiving reverse current to switch modes, the recording current is sent through a different winding of the coil. You will only be able to either record or playback with the new head but not both since your boombox circuitry does not support the use of a 4-wire head.

Oh, that is a solid reason to discard this idea,, I will keep it for my other boombox aj-490 and see how it goes.
Thank you for your quick reply and explanation.