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I recently set up my audio setup in a way that my "Hifi" system goes into my mixer, which then sends multitrack into my PC.

I've been trying everything out out to make sure everything works. When testing, my FM/AM receiver, CD player, and record player work as expected. When i try to play Cassettes in stereo/binaural, the left channel is only low mids and below, and the right channel is low mids and everything above, making it unbearable in binaural and really annoying in stereo.

Everything in the chain after cassette deck is known good, so is this just a problem with cassettes that i wasn't aware of, or might this be a problem with the deck?

I've checked my eq settings on my mixer and theyre all perfectly at unity for the cassette deck, so that is not the issue.

Azteria
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    Have you got a spare cassette tape you can record something new to, then listen back? If it's the same, then idk the cause; if it's any type of 'better' suspect the azimuth is miles out of true, or even the entire head is jogged out of alignment. Is it wrinkling the tapes at all? Check whether it's a 2 or 3-head machine too. Symptoms can be different on a 3-head, but they're rare. – Tetsujin Nov 20 '23 at 14:51
  • I don't have a seperate cassette to record to, and I'd rather not record to the cassettes i own currently, as they were a limited edition sale of an album i quite love.

    I don't know anything about the azimuth, i might try researching about that.

    It doesn't seem to be wrinkling the tapes.

    I can't find any information about whether it's a 2 or 3-head either. Is there any features the mean its 3 head? It can record onto cassettes, in case that makes a difference.

     – Azteria Nov 20 '23 at 14:58
  • I've found out that it's 3 heads; 1 x record/playback, 1 x playback, 1 x erase.

    (I can't edit my original comment anymore, since it's been too long)

     – Azteria Nov 20 '23 at 15:06
  • OK, without being able to run a record/playback test… You can align a machine roughly using just a commercial pre-recorded tape, if you have no reference line-up tape - you just tweak until it's 'brightest' & best-centred - but tbh, & certainly without seeing & hearing it first it's not something I'd recommend to a beginner. I'd be inclined to take it to a pro to have a look at. I would avoid playing any irreplaceable tapes until it's been looked at. – Tetsujin Nov 20 '23 at 15:18
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    Cassettes 'back in my day' were considered cheap & disposable, like SD cards or USB sticks these days. We had boxes of them to mess about with, so no-one cared if a couple got wrecked trying to figure out a dodgy mechanism, tape path or alignment. You also really need a proper 'tweaker' [either all-plastic, or mainly plastic with a tiny screwdriver blade embedded in the end] to do head alignment - no good sticking a potentially magnetised regular screwdriver in near magnetic tape & heads. – Tetsujin Nov 20 '23 at 15:20
  • btw, cassettes are the old equivalent of mp3 files. they're not as good as the original, they introduce some noise & perhaps distortion… but they shouldn't be 'weird' ;) – Tetsujin Nov 21 '23 at 18:18
  • I still have a large box full of cassettes. I also have a dedicated cassette deck for conversion via PC. Man, some sound AWFUL. With cyclic high freq filtering on one, and another sounded like the one in the question. I'd describe it as weird, lol. But they were *copies*. Retail tapes sounded much better. But all you have to do is try a different cassette to see if it's the cassette or the machine. 100% agree, don't put priceless tapes in until it's been fully tested. I've had many "hungry" cassette players. And sometimes the tape came out stretched, twisted and completely unfixable. – n00dles Nov 21 '23 at 20:15
  • @n00dles - it's actually been quite some time since I last did restoration from cassette, & the software has improved a lot over the years. I used an old 2-head NAD rather than my 'posh' 3-head Nakamichi, because it was easier to tweak & had a mod to fine-tune the speed. I did some azimuth fine-tuning using an old app by Airwindows, but these days there's Izotope RX & Capstan that can take a lot of the pain out of it. – Tetsujin Nov 22 '23 at 07:44
  • @Tetsujin Yeah, I did the repairs in RX and enhancement etc in Cubase. I think it was RX3 or 4 at the time. I'd have about 16 tracks of enhancements, automations and phase inversions lol I got a bit obsessed with it, but they came out sounding pretty good, with a robust low end and higher, wider highs. I don't know that much about the actual physical machines, though, just the repairs side. And it used to be quite the job. – n00dles Nov 22 '23 at 18:34
  • @n00dles - Izotope didn't exist when I did this - https://soundcloud.com/dirty_max - which was the most desperate attempt ever;) Mainly salvaged from absolutely abysmal cheaply mass-duplicated tapes, almost nothing above 2k was left. You can still hear phase/azimuth-shifting, but it was as good as it got at the time. I only posted these up last year, but they were rescued 20 years ago. It might be worth another go, with modern software - one day I might get round to it ;) – Tetsujin Nov 22 '23 at 18:44
  • @Tetsujin I'll reply in [chat] – n00dles Nov 23 '23 at 22:08

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