She's alive, she's alive - my god she's alive!

[huggybear]

Howdy Y'all,

Finally got round to re-belting and cleaning this Aiwa XK009, I picked up for peanuts.

It's been in the man cave begging to be made operational. Capstan belts easy peasy. Playback belt no way Jose. Was up into the wee hours 2.00 am taking apart the whole damn cassette mechanism just to have the satisfaction of slipping on the wee belt. But hey it was worth it and I blame you lot for infecting me with an affliction that has no known cure.

Anyway this is the best tape deck I've ever owned. It sounds so sweet, very balanced and crystal clear.
To do it justice and a nod to the guys across the pond. I recorded some Bruce Springsteen(mix of vinyl and cd) tracks onto a Sony UX-Pro and the AIWAWA is singin like the siren she is.

Viva Cassette!

[Scorpion8]

Awesome! Can you please, next time post some working pics so the next guy to come along and do this has a reference? Thanks.

[Styx_II]

Congrats on the resurrection.......Springsteen sweeeeeet! *Hi5*

[Tape Rat]

Anyway this is the best tape deck I've ever owned. It sounds so sweet, very balanced and crystal clear.
But its not not not..................not silver*devil*

[Naknut]

Congrats!! Yes this place will make you Dr. Frankenstein or at least make you try to put them back together.

[huggybear]

Thanks chaps.

It was a pain in the proverbials and I don't ever wanna go through changing belts on another tape deck for a while.*fit*
At times I felt it would have been easier to kidnap a Japanese kid from Tokyo and put him to work on it.

I have the service manual in pdf format for anyone who wants it.


Your right Admiral Scorpion8 I could have took images of my working and posted them, but at 2am and being nagged by the missus to take the tape deck to the tip, a brother needs to work his s**t out.....*grin*

[Tape Rat]

At times I felt it would have been easier to kidnap a Japanese kid from Tokyo and put him to work on it.*check*
I think they should have supplied one with every Hi-End deck they sold,
I get the impression that Aiwa didn't want anybody to service the decks.*reelspin*

[stuwee]

Great news huggybear!!

Damn, that's a sweet lookin' Sony receiver too *check**check*

[scan80269]

Congrats huggybear! XK-009 is one great Aiwa deck, and with dbx too!

Per information compiled by Alex (A.N.T.), XK-009 uses one LC4966 CMOS quad switch in the audio signal path, and the sonic quality of the deck can be improved by replacing this chip (IC708) with an ANT4066 chip to cut down on the harmonic distortion introduced by the non-linearity of the LC4966. This is one mod that is very worth doing, IMHO.

I am fortunate to have Aiwa decks (AD-F990, XK-S9000) that don't use 4066 switches in the audio path, but I also have a Sony TC-K707ES and a Technics RS-B965 that use 4066 (3 & 5 chips respectively). After replacing the 4066 chips with ANT4066, the sound has improved on both decks.

BTW, I just acquired an RME Fireface 400 that will be used as a headphone amp, high-quality ADC and DAC, and should allow me to feed my decks with a high-quality digital source, such as 24/96 recordings (I don't have any decent analog sources except for my cassette decks). I plan to do another round of listening to the sonic improvements brought by the ANT4066. I put IC sockets in my Sony & Technics to allow the ANT4066 to be swapped with the original 4066 chips for sonic comparisons.