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[audio cassette player] Are both or only one "axis" supposed to drive the tape? (piefed.cdn.blahaj.zone)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/techsupport@lemmy.world
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I finally bought myself and old audio cassette player. The insides look crazy clean and the drive belts seem neither loose nor dried out.

But!

It's only the left "axis" - or whatever it's called - that's spinning and thus "driving/forwarding" the tape. With "left", I mean the one that rolls up the tape as it's being played. Looking inside, the right axis is not even actuated. It's just a "dead"/unmoving part. Is this how they all work?

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[–] 2 points 1 month ago (1 child)

So, I guess that that means that the fidelity of audio near the end of the cassette would be higher than that near the beginning. Huh. Never thought about that. Neat!

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago

    Yes. In very rare cases, vinyl records will be cut with tracks running inside to outside. In the one example I've seen, it's to accommodate the building crescendo of the classical piece recorded. The louder more dynamic portion at the end benefits from the faster vinyl.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5Afikv6k1-c

    Edison's original phonograph used cylinders which offer constant speed playback.

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