This exact unit was described by the seller as "fully functional, serviced and calibrated, home use only".
The only true statement was "home use only". Unit was in pretty decent cosmetic shape.
Honest description would rather be something like "unit turns on, the tape is running, leds light on, buttons switch, knob are turning".
What was wrong?
1. Overall sound is awful.
2. Not so decent tape.
3. Hard rubber roller.
4. Dirty tape heads and unit itself.
5. Low volume of repeats.
6. Volumes of tape heads are mismatched.
7. Stereo jack instead of XLR output jack.
8. Input switch performs poorly and put in backwards.
9. Wrong bias of chorus bbd.
10. Wrong set up of dBm scale.
11. Noise floor is too high.
12. Ugly power plug.
In terms of sound quality this unit was performing really bad.
Felt nothing but disappointment about it.
There was nothing good about it, except overall cosmetics.
The owner didn't want to send it back to seller.
And that was right decision.
Let's start from easy fixes and move to difficult ones.
1. Input level switch and noisy potentiometers.
I use Kontakt S for cleaning switches and Kontakt PR for potentiometers.
Easy-peasy lemon breeze.
After the cleaning of switches and pots I put level switch in the right direction.
2. XLR
The funniest thing about replaced xlr jack was that it was not noted anywhere.
Nor in the description, not in photos. Oh well, shit happens.
After further investigation I decided to replace both input and output xlrs.
Old input had a poor condition of spring that holds jack in place.
Also color matched input and output look much better together.
3. Power plug
Old white noname plug and new black Legrand. Feel the difference.
4. Cleaning and tape replacement
<product placement that no one pays me for>
Owner bought all the replacements from Echofix.
If you need any kind of parts for your tape echo - look no futher and just get them at Echofix!
You definitely won't regret it!
</product placement that no one pays me for>
Let's replace the old tape.
What can one use to clean the tape head?
For cleaning you should use isopropyl alcohol.
You can clean every part of tape travel except the pinch roller and the tape itself.
Isopropyl can damage rubber roller and ruin tape.
You'd better clean tape heads after each use of the machine.
 |
| Dirty tape heads |
Why would one need to replace path felts?
After a while felts can collect an enormous collection of dust and dirt.
Both dust and dirt is not what you want on your tape.
 |
| Dirty felt and old rubber roller |
 |
| Ugly old dirty felts |
 |
| Fresh and clean felts |
Why does one need to replace tape tension spring? Can one just replace felt on it?
If the tension spring is bent, you won't likely be able to set the correct tension of tape.If the tape tension is wrong the tape contacts poorly with tape heads, resulting in quiet, distorted and noisy repeats.And that's not what we looking for.
 |
| Bent tension spring |
 |
| Old and new tension springs |
 |
| Old tension spring is bent significantly |
And what about tape feed bearings? They seems to spin, nah?
Indeed they spin, but not so good as new ones.
It's really easy to replace them.
Take off old bearings, clean the shafts, put on new one, add a little grease to shaft.
 |
| Old and new bearings |
What's wrong with stock rubber roller? Why is the rubber roller for Echofix far superior then stock one?
The hard rubber roller is resulting in much more wow & flutter and worse motor performance.
Echofix rubber roller is made much better due to a bearing inside of roller. That's the reason why it spins much better and smoothly on a shaft.
 |
| New tape and new green rubber roller |
5. Replacing electrolytic capacitors
Why do one need to replace electrolytic capacitors?
As electrolytic capacitors get older they tend to lose their characteristics and perform much worse.
Old caps are the reason why there is so high noise floor and not so high fidelity sound on the output.
They even can cause no output at all.
Electrolytic cap replacement set was also bought from Echofix.
It took about 70 caps to replace, but it totally worth it.
 |
| Before |
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| After |
6. Final adjustments
Any info on calibration points? How to perform them? What tools do one need?
Tools:
1. Oscilloscope.
2. Function generator.
3. Digital multi meter with dBm measurements.
4. Strain gauge.
5. A pair of hands.
You can find info on adjustments in Roland's service manual.
I don't recommend to skip any of the steps. It also better to make adjustments in the exact order as in service manual.
That's all!
In this case we didn't have to replace bearing of motor, it performs as it should at the moment.
But we will get to it later. In a year or maybe even two.
I'm really happy how it all turned out. It sounds as gorgeous as it should.
From now on the owner can enjoy the sounds of real tape echo without any problems, such as high noise floor, poor performance or any other bs.
If your space echo is in need for some help - drop me a message.
If you decided to fix one on your own - drop me a message.
We'll figure out something :)
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