HISTORY:
Oh my! While sorting out a few more pieces of my old audio equipment I have come across some nice Champagne Gold MARANTZ equipment.
I had this cassette deck running years ago, consumer machines were my passion during "down time" in my previous audio post production facilities. While I love the Studer and Revox machines, it was "fun" to use the consumer gear from time to time.
I know of TWO issues with this SD530 ...
(1)
As is so often the case (unless you are lucky enough to have a direct drive cassette system) the belts went 'pear shaped' and the tape transport stopped working - that was around the early 2000's! Like all "good gear", if it developed a problem I would put it aside in the work storeroom and make a mental note "I must change those belts ... one day"
Twenty odd years later, it still hasn't been done and now I do not like to undertake restorations or servicing due to poor eyesight and general health - age is taking it's toll!
I am offering this very nice single door cassette machine ONLY to persons who feel they have the skills to tackle a "belt change" Probably the hardest part is getting the new replacement belt although I have found Wagner Electronics in Sydney to be very good if you know the width and length of the required belt (they do assist online by showing you how to measure up a belt for replacement)
(2) Main board audio issue, discovered while testing ... please read below
With that lengthy introduction, let's get down to the details ...
MARANTZ - Single Cassette Deck
Made in Japan
Circa market release 1983 ~ 1984
Model: SD530
3 Head
2 Motors
4 track - 2 channel
Tape selectable: Type 1, CrO2 & Metal
Dolby Noise Reduction: B & C
Best frequency response (metal tape) 20Hz - 20kHz
S/N Dolby C: 75dB
Wow & Flutter: 0.04% maximum
Auto reverse
A readable service manual is available online from a few websites (free download) and this comes in handy to see how to get the tape mechanism withdrawn from the case (not difficult)
Tackling a belt change should not be technically too difficult, access appears to be quite easy to the mechanism.
Tackling the audio issue however WILL require technical skills and some decent test equipment would be handy too! If you do not know the difference between a resistor a capacitor and a transistor - move right along, this is not for you to tackle.
INSPECTION REPORT:
I was a bit apprehensive to open up the top lid but I took a look inside to see what the current condition is.
Very clean, main board looks good - I was looking in particular for signs of any component stress from previous use, nothing observed - no leaking electro's, no 'charred' resistors or other signs of component stress.
(1) Changing the belt
The mechanism is quite an 'open' design and changing of the belt(s) should not be too difficult - unlike some I have come across in the past. Straight away I can see that the main drive belt has failed (broken) with some pieces of it left on the pulleys. Looks like some of the belt has 'melted' onto the main drive motor pulley and while a cleanup is a messy job, it can be done prior to fitting a new belt. I mention there are two belts, one is the main drive belt - it does all the "transport" hard work and the other belt is for the tape counter. The latter belt looks to be still in good condition but it would be wise to change BOTH belts, just to be sure in the knowledge that both of the belts are nice and fresh. In the Service Manual, the main drive belt is referred to as part number 841N, a flat belt but unfortunately no size information is given.
(2) Audio issue
This problem only became apparent when I was testing the SD530 with power ON. Of course the tape transport does not move at all but then I noticed the twin horizontal LED VU meter was initially just a couple of Green LED's lit up but after approximately 1 second after Power ON, the VU meter on both channels goes full scale! What the ...?
I then connected the deck to my current NAD sound system to see what I can hear on either channel i.e why those VU displays are behaving like that.
When first powered up, silence from both channels (even though the bar graph shows two Green LEDs lit up) but after a wait of approximately one second, dang! I was expecting hum but no, it sounds a bit like White noise mixed with a constant single tone, around 1Khz (estimated frequency as my test gear has all been sold!) This "foreign tone" is constant, it sound very much as though I had a sig gen connected! The White noise is also present, of a similar level to the tone. It is interesting that this noise occurs after a delay, capacitor charging?
I can change this "noise" on both channels by switching the tape type and/or the Dolby noise reduction settings but at no point can I stop this "noise" completely - in some switch settings I lose the noise in one channel but the Left channel ALWAYS has the noise present.
Another 'side issue" I noticed was that the Left channel LED display has 3 LED's not lighting up, not a major issue but something that was noticed.
"Your task Jim, should you accept this mission, is to fault find and solve this issue" (a bad Mission Impossible quote)
I do see that the Service Manual and schematics are readily available from the usual places online (for free). Fortunately the manual has good schematics, block diagrams and level charts.
Best of luck!
COSMETIC CONDITION:
Front panel controls are all complete, undamaged physically
Side & rear panels clean and in very good condition but the top however has a couple of small scratches which have broken through the "Champagne Gold" vinyl like material covering the metal case. Originally I thought that the case had been "sprayed" but these two scratches clearly show that the top surface is like a skin over the case.
Once serviced, this would be a good choice of basic machine to run those old cassette based recordings that were never released on CD or other formats. For example, I had masses of metal band "sell at the gig door" releases on cassette, each cassette had hand crafted packaging, these were truly one of a kind releases. What a joy to run those through a cassette machine once more! Sure you could use a nice (in fact very nice) Studer, Revox or even a Nakamichi Dragon but would it be worth that cost? Those machines (and others in their class) are now extremely expensive machines.
