Company Address: A & B Enterprises, P.O. Box 3592, Simi Valley, Cal. 93063.
With all the excitement over the introduction of trend-setting major components, it's easy to overlook those minor accessories which we all need. And sometimes it's difficult to make the best choice among them.
Anyone who uses a tape recorder, even if only on rare occasion and even if high-quality recording is not the primary goal, must accept cleaning the various parts along the tape path as a regular chore. The format of the recorder and its quality make no difference: Cleaning is a necessity to ensure good tape motion and to get the best record and playback performance.
The advertised claims for the various cleaners available are quite similar, even though there are chemical differences. A large group of cleaners is based upon isopropyl alcohol, which can do quite a good job provided it is nearly pure and does not include additives that might leave deposits on the heads or elsewhere. Alcohol-based cleaners are not good to use on pinch rollers, however, and they may leave residue that most users would have difficulty detecting. Another sizable group of cleaners is based on DuPont Freon TF solvent. These are very good cleaners which do not attack pinch rollers (or plastics, for that matter).
When I first got the Intraclean S-711 head cleaner, identified as a halogenated hydrocarbon, I mistakenly considered it a TF type. The chemical make up is different, however; the manufacturer emphasizes its low surface tension and "excellent wetting," and cautions that Intraclean S-711 should not be used on PVC or styrene plastics. (If your deck has plastic parts, make a test application on a small, unimportant area. Intraclean also makes S-721, a TF-type cleaner, for use where S-711 should be avoided.) Not having any such plastic parts to worry about, I ran a series of comparisons of Intraclean S-711 versus my best TF-type cleaner. At the time, I was making a number of copies on open-reel recorders using a mediocre tape formulation that left noticeable deposits with each pass of the tape. This required careful cleaning after each of the four tracks was recorded. I felt that my TF-type cleaners had done a good job in the past, and I didn't really expect to see superior results with the Intraclean product--but I did.
To compare the two cleaners, I used both for each head cleaning. When I used S-711 first, the cotton swabs obviously removed much more of the de posits, and the pinch rollers improved in appearance, leading me to conclude that even subsurface contaminants had been removed. There was no additional benefit apparent from re cleaning the same head with the TF type cleaner. When I cleaned the tape path with the TF-type cleaner first, I could always remove more from the heads, guides and rollers if I then re cleaned with S-711.
While I caution potential users that this product might damage certain plastic parts, my own experience showed it to be the most effective cleaner at all points along the tape path. In a way, I was even more impressed by the way S-711 revived the appearance of pinch rollers that I had thought ready for replacement.
Intraclean S-711 is available for home use in a two-ounce size at a list price of $6.95. (This is somewhat more expensive than the TF-type cleaners, but Intraclean is very effective per application.) It is also available in larger sizes, for studios and duplicators.
Intraclean also makes the C-911A cassette-cleaning device, which has a list price of $11.95. It is built in a cassette shell for direct insertion into any cassette recorder or player. The cleaning shell contains three basic elements: A cleaning tape that runs for about 15 S in play mode, two reservoirs that supply cleaning fluid to the tape, and two pairs of capstan/roller cleaning pads, one set for each possible capstan position. A half-ounce bottle of S-711 with a special, easy-open top is used to dampen the two reservoirs and the capstan/roller cleaning pads before the C-911A is placed in a deck. The left pinch-roller pad is normally positioned out, but it can, and should, be retracted for use with three-head cassette decks that place the erase head at this spot.
Intraclean makes the valid point that such an in-shell cleaner is particularly good for use with car tape players, where there is no access for direct cleaning. I ran my checks, however, with several standard decks of various designs to observe the cleaning cycle.
I determined in the first few tries that I needed to saturate the reservoirs and the pads to ensure that the transport would move the cleaning tape. The C-911A always ran well with the Technics RS-B48R and the Akai GX-R99 decks, automatically reversing and cleaning in the second direction. The cleaner worked most of the time with the Aiwa AD-M700 and the Teac V-500X. It was most uncooperative with the Nakamichi 582Z, usually dropping out of play after just a second or two of cleaning.
With the last three decks, the reservoirs and pads had to be soaked to get a complete cleaning cycle; I judged that the somewhat higher tape drag during use with less fluid actuated the end-of-tape sensors. The results for all of the decks were same with each of the three cleaning cassettes which I tested.
I found that with some three-head decks, it was important to retract the movable left pad, as expected from the caution in the instructions. There were some problems at the right-side pad because the follow a straight path in front of the capstan, but actually cuts across part of the shell opening. When the cleaner did not work on one of the problem decks, I saw that the pad had been pushed in and it looked as if the tape might even have ended up behind the capstan.
On the decks where it worked consistently, the C-911A cleaner did an excellent job of removing all sorts of residue along the tape path. I expect that the device would work well on most car decks, but I recommend a trial to make certain that the cleaning tape makes its full run. To check this, manually rewind the tape to the beginning, saturate the pads, insert the cleaner and put the deck into play. If it is an auto-reversing unit, the change in direction should occur after 15 S. If the deck does not have auto reverse, it should stop after the same period of time. Remove the C-911A and make certain that the cleaning tape travelled its full length.
Intraclean's S-711 head cleaner definitely does the best job of anything I have tried, both in direct use with cot ton swabs and with the C-911A in co operative decks. After my checks, I have concluded that S-711 is the best cleaner to use, where the deck's materials permit it.
--Howard A. Roberson
(Source: Audio magazine, Dec. 1985)
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Discwasher -- record care (Nov. 1977)
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