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General Discussion / Newbie question about playback (Technics 1500 and Uher Universal)

« on: December 21, 2008, 07:26:09 PM »

I have a Technics RS-1500US that was given to me. It works almost 100% mechanically, but I'm having difficulty playing back some tapes I want to digitize. I have a number of 5" reels of interviews that I recorded in the late 1970s on good quality Scotch tape. I recorded them on a Uher 4000-L Reporter. Since I acquired the Technics I've tried to play them back on that deck. The sound plays back backwards for some reason --- audio sounds clear but everything is backwards (like a bad Beatles sound effect). I have another old Uher Universal deck on which the playback still works and the tapes play back perfectly on that Uher. The problem is that I don't have a cable to connect from the Uher to an RCA connection on my stereo-- if I did I could dub the tapes from the Uher Universal.  So, ideally I'd like to be able to play the interview tapes back on the Technics.

So, here are my questions:
1) When I play back most of my interview tapes on the Technics, there's only sound from right channel. Left channel seems to not work.. no meter movement or sound. Could this be why the tape play back backwards... because the actual track is on the left channel? If so, is this repairable? (For some reason just one of the tapes played back perfectly from the right channel!)
2) Regarding the Uher... assuming the radio/phono cable for that unit is a DIN cable, is there a standard DIN-to-RCA cable that would work or do I need a custom made cable? (The Uher Universal manual has a schematic for making such a cable.)

Thanks for any help you folks can provide!

Rick Burke