I bought 1 of these a few months ago, still in it's box. A lovely machine.

My old friend the GTC-46D. Bought one my freshman year in college in Sept. 1973. Great memories.

Hi, yes I have the same cassette deck and works well, I did also have a top loaded Sansui cassette deck also from the early 70's but silly me sold it in the mid 80's.

I love vintage gear. You always do a bangin job demoing them.

Yep, I got it working like a charm and fell in love with it!

AKAI is quality i still use my GXC-46 Stereo Cassette Recorder from the seventies, my AJ-520 FL Stereo Portable Radio GXC Cassette player from the eighties. And the Double Stereo Automatic Reverse GX-W45 cassettedeck from the nineties. They are all excellent & indestructible so i know what kind of quality your AKAI is !!!

@bluenazz

8 жыл бұрын

I agree with you about the quality of the Akai tape decks. Their reel to reel decks were great too!

Thank you 👍🎵 from Turkey

Thanks! I'd never researched the history of Dolby as I never used it while recording mix tapes during the 70's. I sure wish that I still had all of my old mix tapes!

Good solid deck! And very nice,it has the GX Head!

I've just subbed! I look forward to viewing your videos when you start uploading! - Craig

I still have one of these, in its box.I have bought Akai cassette decks since 1975, well built at this time, came in with a hefty weight too for their size...I think in the 80s they became cheaper looking, not as well built..but still gave us a decent sound..I also had a GXC75D auto-reverse, which was their top of the range mid 70s..and expensive at around £140-£160..and the sound was better than the very popular reel-reel deck, the 4000DS they made..if matched with the right cassette tape..

Had one of these new back in '74 nice bit of kit , the ADR stood for" automatic distortion reduction" the OLS was" over load suppression" , the eject was one thing that really needed a soft eject that came on later models other than that it did feel a quality piece .

wow.incredible.you did your homework on that thing!

Thanks for that! I didn't know that Nakamichi built the first front loaders!

Great sound

Thanks Rob! Just trying to stir a few memories, like how great the past really was (:->

just bought a beautiful refurbished one in great condition for 160 bucks

The blue rotation is interesting while the tape is running.

I remember the top loaders well. I remember the slimmer ones that people used to use to do their dictation in their offices. I remember recording with chrome tapes and how the highs were much better. I used to play everything back in that setting too for better sound I think? Looked like one of the old Maxell blanks that you popped in. Original Purple from the seventies sounds pretty good. Thanks Craig, nice flashback demo. Rob/Boston "Fly into the rising sun, faces, smiling every one"

It's true how those early cassette decks were real tanks! The Pioneer T-3500 I got on March 31st 2011 in an estate sale just needed a little contact cleaner and it worked like new! Its original purchase prise was $259.95 (CAD).

Got one here Thinking of getting it it fixed.

Right On Aldi!

Thank you for watching! - Craig

One of the best rock riffs ever. ... Mad Woman From Tokyo. Hello Canada, from Brighton UK. I once lived, all too briefly, in London, ON, 1957-58. I hope your weather at the moment is better than ours..! Eeh?

A very nice machine...indeed

Thank you for watching!

The Akai 8 track players and recorders looked very different indeed!

Yes, all of the Akai decks that I've come across have been very well built. Thanks for watching!

LOL! You got the "eh" down well for such a brief stay in Canada (:-> I once lived in the West Midlands and then in south Lincolnshire too. But I'm now a long way from London, Ontario, living not too far from the southern part of Alaska.

I picked up one of these recently and threw some new belts in it. It's back to proper play speed again, but the new issues I have is that it's really muffled. When you start playing a tape, it comes in perfect and crisp, but then immedeately goes muffled. If I push the play tab down as far as it goes so that the head is mashed against the tape, it goes back to being crisp until I let go. It's boggling me what the problem is. Maybe it's the head alignment!

MUITO LOKO ,estou adquirindo um desse,good

Thanks for watching!

Yes River, I think that the old Akai's almost work as nicely as your old Philips top loaders. But we never see them over here (:->

Thanks! I've yet to come across an Akai with the GX head that I didn't like (:->

Salutes from argentina

That is ancient. lol. I almost forgot that cassette decks existed.

Yes, it might be a head alignment problem. Or something is loose or dirty switches?

Ooops! I think that I said a double negative but I really do like the GX heads. They always seem to work very well (:->

Hi Aldi, Did you keep your Pioneer or did you pass it along? I just went back to watch your vid and you got all of the paraphenalia with it. It might have just needed a cleaning inside.

Oh,why you didn't like it? Sounds interesting,because i have not very much experience with these glass GX Heads / i don't know the weak points of GX Heads... I had only bad experience with a Ferrite Tape Head of my Grundig CNF350. I'm looking forward to your interesting answer! :-)

ADR stands for Automatic Distortion Reduction. I had one one of these until it was stolen. I had it biased to Maxell chromium tapes. Fuck I miss that deck!

I actually looked deeper into it, the entire system is off alignment, and it's damaging the tape pretty badly. I'm deciding whether to turn it into a summer project or just resell it to someone that's a little more capable than me at fixing something this bent out of shape.

Thanks! I'd like to think that our YT videos are providing a cultural or historical service (:->

Does this have a fan? just turned it on (no tapes to test) and it sounds like the motor is running but the tape spindle isnt turning unless i press play. so im guessing its a fan?

@bluenazz

8 жыл бұрын

I don't think that the Akai tape deck had a fan. The motor may be running with the belt on it.

@downthegardenpath

8 жыл бұрын

bluenazz​ Could this be by design? The deck works perfectly. All i can think is the motor runs constantly but the drive mechanism only engages when you press play. Maybe so you get instant play back and record without the acceleration sound? I don't have much experience with analog formats as you may tell lol

@ignitore

6 жыл бұрын

it's normal. i've a 40d, when u switch on the deck the motor is stiil spinning also in stop...it's a little noisy... there's a small metallic fan connected to the motor, i think for cooling purpose...

I think that there are times when the wise decision is to cut one's losses and just move on. The time and expense of doing a repair just ain't worth it. Life's too short (:->

Thanks for that info! It's funny to think about how much they cost, relatively speaking (:->

LOL! It's probably older than many of the people who will watch this video (:->

GXC 46d is one of the best casettdeck ever made, fantastic motor, paps system, nerlie last for ever with o drop of oil on berings. Rubber part must be clean when they have hard surfas and i fine sandpaper. Tips use maxell ud tape which has good mecanics and tape. Most kommon problem is vu meters going up and down rapidly and grait nose, put in a tape and pull down recbutton at list 50 times up and down all the way. 2 long swithes is beeing corrosiv and loses contakt ofen works after that Excuse my bad spelling I am swedish tecnikan and worked with the most modell in the 70-80

@j.scottharris5541

4 жыл бұрын

I just bought one used here for little money for a project and this is exactly how it is behaving. Thanks so much for the tip!

I have a akay 46d in brazil

In 2012 dollars, the AKAI GXC-46D would have a MSRP of $1,654.73.

The blue rotation is interesting while the tape is running.