Maintaining Your Audio
Equipment
Sad to say, there are occasions when your audio gear simply
ceases to function, and that usually means a trip to the shop. Before things get that far,
however, there are a number of things you can do to make sure things don't go awry.
Looking after your discs and tapes is one basic procedure, but there are also steps you
can take to keep your equipment performing smoothly as well.
At least one maintenance procedure should be carried out
frequently with your cassette deck: routine cleaning to get rid of oxide that builds up
over time on anything that comes into contact with the tape. This is particularly
important if you play a lot of old prerecorded cassettes, which were often duplicated on
inferior tape stock.
You should take care that the heads, tape guides, capstan,
and pinch-roller are free of oxide, as a buildup on any of them can cause the tape to skew
as it goes by the heads. Contamination on the heads themselves can seriously degrade
high-frequency performance as well. Unfortunately, the heads and tape guides are hard to
reach in many decks, in which case a special head-cleaning cassette is probably the best
bet. Otherwise, a cotton swab and a drop of pure isopropyl alcohol or head-cleaning fluid
will work well. Keep at it until you can no longer see a tell-tale brown smudge on the
swab. Figure on a cleaning after every ten or twelve hours of use. Oxide buildup can be
difficult to spot, so don’t wait until you see discoloration of the heads or capstan;
it’s better to assume it’s there than to wait until it becomes audible.
You should also demagnetize your deck once in a while. Over
time, metal parts that come into contact with the tape can pick up a residual
magnetization, which can add noise during recording or, more seriously, progressively
erase the signal on already recorded tapes, resulting in a permanent loss of treble that
will become worse with each playing.
Demagnetization is a tricky maneuver that can make matters
worse instead of better if it’s not done right, however, so the procedure is best
performed by a special cassette designed for the purpose (available from several tape
manufacturers). This is a battery-operated device that pops into the machine like a normal
cassette and runs for a few seconds in the play mode. Fortunately, modern cassette decks
are much less susceptible to magnetization than older machines, so you needn’t -- and
probably shouldn’t -- demagnetize nearly as often as you clean.
From time to time you should also check your CD player.
There’s not much you need to do, but remember that it operates optically, and just as
dust can eventually contaminate the discs themselves, so it may have an effect on the
laser lens within the player. In most machines, this lens is not directly accessible to
the user, in which case you should not attempt to get inside the unit. But if you can see
the lens, an occasional dusting with a small camel’s-hair brush or photographic
blower can prevent the buildup of dirt. There are also cleaning discs designed to perform
this small chore automatically, no matter how deeply the lens is buried.
The rest of your system should need relatively little
maintenance, and when it does, there will probably be audible clues to alert you. For
instance, any mechanical controls and switches on your electronic components can become
dirty over time, with results that can range from a subtle scratching sound whenever you
adjust them to a horrendous roar that can damage ears, tweeters, and neighborly relations.
A shot of contact cleaner will usually put things right, as long as you are able to get
the cleaner inside the offending controls.
The cables that join one component to another are fertile
sources of problems, either subtle or gross. The most common problem with a system that
has remained in one place for a long time is oxidation of the contacts, which can disturb
the electrical connection between the cables and the components they are plugged into.
This can sometimes cause intermittent operation, but it is more likely to degrade the
sound in less dramatic ways: by reducing high-frequency response, for instance, or
increasing noise, distortion, or radio-frequency interference (RFI).
Often, simply unplugging and replugging the connectors will
scrape off the film of oxidation and restore the system to normal. A squirt of contact
cleaner is also a good idea, and it may retard further oxidation in the future. While you
are at this task, which you should perform about once a year, it is wise to flex each of
the cables and listen for crackles or other unwanted noises that may be caused by a faulty
cord. If you hear anything of this sort, replace the cable.
An audio system is a very complex thing, and it
doesn’t take much to make it misbehave. By the same token, it also takes relatively
little effort to prevent the most common problems. It’s well worth it if high-quality
audio is important to you.
...Ian G. Masters
ian@mastersonaudio.com
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