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Akai 4000DB

Tony L

Tony L

Administrator
The local auction again:

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£17 including fees. It was very dusty but in beautiful cosmetic condition, pretty much mint casework. Really clean inside with very clean tidy cams, idlers etc and I can't see any leaky or bulging caps. The only negative is it hasn't got its plastic lid (hence being so dusty!), the pinch roller could be better having a couple of light dents I assume due to being left stopped in 'play' mode and the tape counter doesn't work (a very easy fix). I've just tried recording on a reel of very old and probably cheap and knackered tape I had knocking around and it seems to work perfectly, records and plays back better than I'd have expected given the dubious tape stock. I only tried at 7.5ips, which is the fastest it goes.

A lovely old thing and beautifully made. Heavier than it looks too, I was pretty knackered by the time I'd carried it home! It's the 'posh' DB version too with Dolby, which again seems to work as it should. I've no idea what to do with it as I don't need a tape deck, let alone a 7.5ips quarter track (the few old masters I have are 15ips half track), but the temptation is to restore it fully as it it is in such nice condition. It could do with a new pinch roller and the belt for the tape counter, they are available but would cost about £70 to land. Makes it an expensive ornament, but by saying that fully working ones in this condition seem to go for £150-200 now, so I could still double my money if I ever got bored and wanted to shift it! I just can't stop myself bidding on clean tidy vintage hi-fi, the house is full of the stuff now!
 
One is very very jealous...wish there were such auctions near me. I suppose there was a box of tapes with it, all John Peel shows from the 70s ?
 
I'm just about to fire up a Vintage 1971 Akai tuner amp that would partner that beautifully if it is working order.;)
 
madmike said:
One is very very jealous...wish there were such auctions near me. I suppose there was a box of tapes with it, all John Peel shows from the 70s ?
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It was sitting very much on its own, just some rather nasty cheap interconnects hanging out the back and thankfully the take-up spool as I can't find mine (I should have a nice metal Sony one somewhere from decades ago, but I'm buggered if I can find it). The local auction is great as it is just house-clearance crap. Mostly there is nothing of the slightest interest to me, but every now and again there is some audio kit and odds are no one is going to bid on it. I've done well there over the years, I guess the best being a tidy Technics SL1200 MkI with SME 3009 and Shure M95ED for £30! My favourite item is a beautiful old 1973 Sony ST-5150 tuner in mint condition with it's matching TA-1140 amp for £17 the pair. I use the tuner upstairs in the Leak/149 system and it sounds great.
 
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!!!!!!!!

In cyberspace no one can hear you scream.
 
Very nice and well done, if it starts to get noisy or crackly the likely cuplrits are the Hitachi 2SC458's in the audio circuits, they should be replaced with 2SC2240 or 2SC/KSC1845 which are quieter too. The track selector and potentiometers likely need a blast with Servisol or similar.
 
Superb find Tony.
I think 7.5ips is ample for home audio use. Four times the spread of cassette and wider tape. Even good used tape is expensive these days so you don't want to whizz through the reel too fast. Plenty good enough for recording vinyl, radio and CD.
 
Robert said:
Superb find Tony.
I think 7.5ips is ample for home audio use. Four times the spread of cassette and wider tape. Even good used tape is expensive these days so you don't want to whizz through the reel too fast. Plenty good enough for recording vinyl, radio and CD.
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I own a 4000DS, little used.
I sold a well-used Sony 377 before I bought it.
Both the Akai and Sony have their plus and minus points.
I use it sometimes.
It's fun to see those reels flying round...
 
I remember that deck from when I started getting the HiFi bug. Odd now to think that Comet used to sell them - mind you they used to sell 401s too.
 
I've no idea why as I really have no legitimate use for the thing nor anywhere to put it, but I've gone for a service kit (link). The pinch roller being the most expensive bit by far, and that is the only visibly tatty bit of this deck. The capstan belt seems in great condition as do the internal idlers, though the tape-counter belt is hopelessly saggy so will be good to fix that. It is just too nice a thing not to fix up really. I'm actually amazed by the condition given it was unboxed, not a mark on the "wood" case or front panel, after a good clean the heads look very decent indeed with very little wear and I was very surprised by how well it worked. With the ancient 5" EMI tape that had been stored in a bin sack in the cellar (several similar reels came with a battered Uher Report recorder which proved unserviceable that I'd bought to get a couple of nice AKG and Beyer mics) and was actually a bit damp/musty the sound compared to CD was not that much down, just a little softer and warmer and with Dolby engaged little additional hiss. I tried recording a minute with and a minute without Dolby engaged, definitely better with IMO, which implies the calibration can't be too far off spec. As such I do have a fair bit of this quality of ancient tape, a couple of reels of EMI, quite a few of BASF. I picked the one I did as it seemed the best sealed against the elements. So I do have some scrap tape, just a shame it is all 5".

PS It has the most stupid "auto-stop" feature imaginable which does exactly that. It just stops. If you set the power switch to 'shut off' the machine powers up when the tape tension arm is up and powers down when it drops, i.e. if playing a tape to the end it just turns itself off leaving the drive mech engaged and the pinch roller pressed against the now obviously stationary capstan! How dumb is that? Explains why the pinch roller is dented anyway!
 
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I think of reel to reel as kinetic art, that's enough reason to have one.
I've noticed prices climbing quite a bit in the last few years, there seems to be a bit of a resurgence of interest.
 
I do like R2R's, in terms of Akai's I have two GX-77's, and also a GX-280D which I am just about to re-visit, the 280D is a step above the 4000's with 3 motors, GX heads and auto reverse. Between a Sony TC-377 and an Akai 4000DS I prefer the Sony, better heads, no speed change sleeves and I also find the mechanism more adjustable although not as bulletproof as the Akai. I do still like the Akais alot, however a Sony TC-377 is probably the main thing that got me into hifi and music as a kid, watching those reel spinning around while they magically make music.

I also have an X-5000W which needs a new dual potentiometer (50k on one gang, 100k on the other!) and a pinch roller, the 5000's are rare decks.

A good cassette deck will likely be on a par with something like the Akai at 3.75ips but at 7.5ips they are capable of very good sound
 
I have the 4000DS mk II, a 1721 with leatherette case and built in amp and speakers and a big Teac A3340s. Like with vinyl the physicality is appealling.
 
Tony L said:
I've no idea why as I really have no legitimate use for the thing nor anywhere to put it, but I've gone for a service kit (link). The pinch roller being the most expensive bit by far, and that is the only visibly tatty bit of this deck. The capstan belt seems in great condition as do the internal idlers, though the tape-counter belt is hopelessly saggy so will be good to fix that. It is just too nice a thing not to fix up really. I'm actually amazed by the condition given it was unboxed, not a mark on the "wood" case or front panel, after a good clean the heads look very decent indeed with very little wear and I was very surprised by how well it worked. With the ancient 5" EMI tape that had been stored in a bin sack in the cellar (several similar reels came with a battered Uher Report recorder which proved unserviceable that I'd bought to get a couple of nice AKG and Beyer mics) and was actually a bit damp/musty the sound compared to CD was not that much down, just a little softer and warmer and with Dolby engaged little additional hiss. I tried recording a minute with and a minute without Dolby engaged, definitely better with IMO, which implies the calibration can't be too far off spec. As such I do have a fair bit of this quality of ancient tape, a couple of reels of EMI, quite a few of BASF. I picked the one I did as it seemed the best sealed against the elements. So I do have some scrap tape, just a shame it is all 5".

PS It has the most stupid "auto-stop" feature imaginable which does exactly that. It just stops. If you set the power switch to 'shut off' the machine powers up when the tape tension arm is up and powers down when it drops, i.e. if playing a tape to the end it just turns itself off leaving the drive mech engaged and the pinch roller pressed against the now obviously stationary capstan! How dumb is that? Explains why the pinch roller is dented anyway!
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Having no legitimate use for something is no excuse for not buying :)

Give it a nice spot to sit in the living room and just admire it. Take it for a spin a couple of times a year to keep it properly functional.

This biggest problem for vintage audio is insufficient use. Circuits and mechanics needs use to keep them in good health,
 
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I assume it is just about possible to play a 15ips half-track master on a 7.5ips quarter-track machine, record it digitally, and then pitch-shift the result up by 100%? The heads are obviously only half the size, but they will align with the stereo channels. I ask as I have one very old and almost certainly god-awful studio recording of my very first band back in the early '80s. If there is still anything on it it will be cringingly bad, but I would rather like to hear it again just for a giggle. When my new pinch roller turns up I'll try recording it via my Focusrite USB interface onto Audacity and see what occurs. The tape is an old Ampex 7" and doesn't look in that great a condition to be honest (poor storage I guess, it has never been played), so I'm expecting it to shed and maybe the odd drop-out. How best to set Audacity? I guess high-res of some description given I'm planning such a drastic pitch-shift? I remember back from when I had an early keyboard sampler pitch shifting too far made for horrible quantisation noise etc, but I guess that is less of an issue these days?
 
Tony L said:
The tape is an old Ampex 7" and doesn't look in that great a condition to be honest (poor storage I guess, it has never been played), so I'm expecting it to shed ...
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Bad news. Out of thousands of cassettes that I've recorded since the mid-1970s, the two Ampexes that I have (amongst many TDK, Maxell, Sony, etc) are the only ones that have become totally unusable.

Be prepared to stop after 30 seconds of violining and shedding .....
 
Ampex before 1977 iirc *might* be OK, I think it is 1977-early 90s that was worst for the sticky shed issues. If you do some searching, it is possible to often get these tapes to play OK, by baking and using nu-finish I think.
 
It would be about 1982-3. No great loss, the world really does not need this music!

Does the sticky shed issue harm the tape machine at all, i.e. does it clean off easy enough?
 
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