Hooking up the Teac 3440 4 track deck for listening

[Brent Powers]

I'm not into recording yet but I would like to listen to some vintage classical recordings I got yesterday for close to nothing. Anyone with experience of these machines? I haven't used a tape deck since the late 60s.

My problem: How do I hook up the four outputs on the rear to an amp/preamp system? I'm using vintage Sonic Frontiers equipment. The deck has 4 outs. I'm currently using outs 1 & 3 to fair results. I'm wondering if it is nessary to sum the other two tracks with a Y cable, or am I OK with only the two channels?

Now, the sound at first was a bit muffled. I cleaned the heads with alcohol. Now it sounds clearer but somewhat strident, perhaps even overmodulated. I have the output levels set at 7, as per the manual. Could it be that I need to degause the heads? Behind all the murk or noise I can hear some promising sound. Now this unit was used by musicians and obviously well cared for, so I suspect no negligence or misuse if they were making recordings with it.

Any advice would be appreciated.

[ironbut]

Hi Brent, welcome to the forum.

I'm assuming that it's a 3340s. It's been decades since I used one but IIRC, there should be a switch for each of the 4 channels for sync playback and normal playback. Check to be sure it's set to normal playback.
It's always a good idea to de mag your entire tape path if it's new to you. 
And if you only cleaned the heads, you should go back and clean all the guides, lifters and pretty much anything that the tape comes in contact as it moves through the machine (that's what the tape path is).
There's tons of info about tape and tape recorders in the stickys above this forum (Beginners Guide,.. Reel to reel links).
Bear in mind that even machines that were well take care of need regular maintenance and some parts wear out.

OOps, I forgot to say that having channels 1&3 hooked up as left and right is correct for 1/4 track tapes and you should sum 1-2 and 3-4 if you want to listen to 1/2 track stereo tapes.

[steveidosound]

I think you have the correct channels hooked up. The nomenclature varied from deck to deck and I unfortunately owned decks that expressed it more than one way. For normal  1/4 track (4 track) stereo tapes you want to be listening to the 1st and 3rd tracks counting from the top of the tape as left and right respectively. These are labeled "front" L/R out on some 4 channel decks. If you get the wrong ones you will hear material from side 2 of the tape playing backwards. You do not want to combine the channels as you suggested. There is a Beginners Guide to tape recorder basics at the top of this section. In there is a bunch of stuff on track configurations as well as cleaning help  basic functions etc.
 You might experiment with the levels feeding your system. If you are close to overloading your line inputs because the output from the deck is too high you might hear what you are describing as over modulated or harsh. Conversely, too low and you might end up with more background noise from boosting gain later (not from the tape itself). IIRC the meters show the variation in output level adjustment. Somewhere between moving and not pinned on the loudest passages should be in the ballpark. Have fun.

[Brent Powers]

Thanks, guys. I'm reading all I can. Mainly I think I need to go over it with a more careful cleaning of everything.