While tripping merrily through the mail, Faiyaz Ahmed was overheard
 FA> never...but the tape is like that on every system (even my brand new
 FA> personel cassete player).
My point was that by not periodically cleaning and demagnetizing the
heads of your cassette machine is what damaged the tapes in the first
place.  
I do mine once a month, wipe the heads with isopropol alchohol on a
swab, then wipe them dry with another swab, then demagnetize with an
inexpensive head demagnetizer from Radio Shack.
Back when I was in radio, we had 6 open reel machines in the studio
(we did almost our whole broadcast day with pre-recorded programs),
and the "ritual" had to be performed DAILY on all the machines.
Don
... "I think not," said Descartes; and promptly disappeared.
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