The most common cause of a tape unravelling or jamming in your player is a dirty pinch roller. Keeping pinch rollers clean is especially important when you are listening to thinner tapes such as C-90 cassettes. Cleaning as described below with alcohol or a tape head cleaner is the best form of maintenance.

You may occasionally encounter "muffled" sound during playback. This occurs because iron oxide particles build up from magnetic tape on surfaces that come in direct contact with it. Even the slightest build-up of flaked-off oxide particles considerably reduces high frequency response. To clean these contact points, use isopropyl alcohol and a cotton swab or purchase our Cassette Head Cleaning Kit. For optimum fidelity, we recommend that you clean your player after listening to each book or after 11-12 hours of machine use.

It is also important periodically to demagnetize the shiny record/play-back and erase heads. Not only do iron oxide particles build up on contact points, but magnetic tapes tend to magnetize the heads. This results in annoying background noise, loss of treble and echoes. A head demagnetizer is a simple, convenient way to demagnetize the heads and eliminate extraneous noises and distortions. We recommend that you demagnetize your unit after listening to each book, coinciding with head cleaning, or any time you notice distortion or loss of crisp, clean sound.