[tomwil]

Saw this ad in Craigslist . It shows a big center speaker sitting on top of the Toshiba DVD recorder they are offering.


Got me to think that maybe it might affect the VHS recording heads?

http://baltimore.craigslist.org/ele/3076014230.html


DVD recorder speaker.jpg 34k .jpg file

 

[Super Eye]

Magnets won’t in any way damage tape heads. Magnets can affect a recording on a tape (re-arrange the tiny magnetic particles) but tape heads will in no way be damaged by a magnet from a speaker. That said it is not a good idea to have any magnets near tape heads because if a magnet is strong enough and close enough -magnets can affect recordings.


What I would be worried most about is the weight of the speaker on top of the unit. This can throw out of alignment the DVD tray and the VCR tape mechanism. Maybe even stop heat from escaping and damage the unit from overheating.

 

[mickinct]

The speakers are SHIELDED...

 

[Super Eye]



Quote:
Originally Posted by mickinct  /t/1416484/would-you-purchase-this-dvd-recorder#post_22148713


The speakers are SHIELDED...

That may be true with the better speakers but not all speakers are shielded. A good way to find out is if you still have a CRT around. Place the speaker next to the CRT and if you see discoloring in the picture then the speakers are not shielded.

 

[tomwil]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Super Eye  /t/1416484/would-you-purchase-this-dvd-recorder/0_100#post_22148128


Magnets won’t in any way damage tape heads. Magnets can affect a recording on a tape (re-arrange the tiny magnetic particles) but tape heads will in no way be damaged by a magnet from a speaker. That said it is not a good idea to have any magnets near tape heads because if a magnet is strong enough and close enough -magnets can affect recordings.

For some reason, I thought tape heads could be magnetized. I guess from the older days when they used to sell tape head demagnetizers for cassette decks.


Good to know!

 

[Church AV Guy]

As was said, it is highly unlikely that the speaker (magnets) would permanently damage the tape heads in a VHS deck. It could make a mess of any recordings being done with the machine with the speaker stacked on top of the recorder, thus messing up the tape in this case, and I would expect it to interfere with playback as well, but not damaging the tape, just the immediate playback. The metal case of the recorder will shield it to some extent too.

 

[Super Eye]



Quote:
Originally Posted by tomwil  /t/1416484/would-you-purchase-this-dvd-recorder#post_22150016


For some reason, I thought tape heads could be magnetized. I guess from the older days when they used to sell tape head demagnetizers for cassette decks.

Good to know!

Yeah I remember the audio head demagnetizers back in the day. I think the theory was that if you had a three-head deck (erase-rec-play) that over time the playback head would accumulate tiny magnetic tape particles. In my opinion this could only happen with three-head decks and only to the playback head as the erase and record heads should degauss themselves when in rec mode. As to VCRs they don’t have dedicated “play” heads. -2 flying rec/play SP, -2 flying rec/play EP, -1 flying erase, -2 flying rec/play HF, 1 stationary erase, 1 stationary rec/play audio/ct. All those heads should degauss themselves when in rec mode. All above info is only my opinion as I remember it.


All that said, even an unshielded speaker magnet in a consumer center speaker near any tape deck will not magnetize any heads, not even dedicated playback heads in a cassette deck. That’s my opinion. Now as for the weight of the speaker on top of that deck? Hmmm that IMO could be damaging to any moving parts, alignment or heat dispersing issues…

 

[Kelson]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Super Eye  /t/1416484/would-you-purchase-this-dvd-recorder/0_100#post_22151984


Now as for the weight of the speaker on top of that deck? Hmmm that IMO could be damaging to any moving parts, alignment or heat dispersing issues…

Considering pictures we have seen of peoples "stacks" of 5-10 DVD recorders piled on top of each other, I don't think one lonesome speaker would even be noticed by the DVDR underneath.

 

[Super Eye]

Yes but with people stacking gear I see a lot of complaints of VHS mis-tracking and the blame going to cheap, weak VHS mechanisms when in fact I bet stacking is to blame. I also see cases when laser burn-out is blamed when in fact laser mis-tracking is happening and the laser is strong otherwise – again laser-mis-tracking in certain cases can be caused due to stacking, slight flex bending of the chassis and causing chaos with moving parts and causing misalignment. I personally witnessed VHS guide pins not engaging properly which could be due to slight chassis flex bending due to stacking. I had a guide pin not engage properly but in my case I suspect a tight tape that was packaged and shipped improperly. After putting that tape in that guide pin would not properly engage even with good tapes until I gently pushed it back in place. I saw disk-tray problems, which to me seemed to be caused by stacking. Especially stacking not at edges - if you take a look at that center speaker, notice that it’s not sitting on the edges of the deck but more towards the center were slight bending can happen and cause misalignment problems with moving parts. I bet in some cases lack of proper heat dispersion is to blame for failed lasers and other parts.


Not telling anyone not to stack. Just saying why you won’t catch me stacking and why my flimsy built VHS decks still track like new

and why my DVD laser is burning strong even after exclusively using 16x discs all these years.

 

[Super Eye]

I was looking at some new speakers the other day. Nothing extreme worth thousands of dollars –just something worth a few hundred. I’m an old school speaker guy I like the floor standing big guys. Come across these CV XLS-215 worth only a few hundred bucks. Surprisingly it seems they dumbed down the base frequency response from the previous set.

The previous set I believe went down to 25Hz.

http://www.cerwinvega.com/home-audio/floorstanding-speakers/xls-215.html

Would you stack these on top of your DVDr???

BTW according to the brochure – these speakers are not shielded for video

http://www.cerwinvega.com/manuals/home/XLS_Brochure.pdf