So my 6 CD changer works, but if a CD doesn't work it doesn't mess up the entire unit.

Has anyone put a cassette in the system after a long (years +) period of not using the cassette player? If you use it regularly and it has always been used that's pretty irrelevant.

I'm wondering about the cassette systems that have not been used for years and then someone plays a cassette - what happened? Because if it eats it then that's a PITA to resolve.

I like the idea of being able to play cassettes. I don't have any anymore but I'd like to order some.

But if people say that they've put cassettes in there after years and it flubs the head unit I don't want to risk it!

I've used mine occasionally and had no problems. But that doesn't mean yours works ok!

Yes, I occasionally use the cassette player, although it was only last year that I actually first tried. Works fine after years of non-use .

I did try a dummy run with a copy from vinyl onto a cheap C90.

Hey fellas,

What's a cassette? Some new sort of thumb drive? Black teeth? LOL.
Obviously some form of new high tech that hasn;t reached us here down under.

Cheers,

Hey Ken,
Good to hear from you again
Hope you're keeping well.


It's an interim fix while the great 8-track rebirth gets up to full steam.

Yes Michael,

Been away too long but the friendships are still burning brightly . . . put simply, the itch became unbearable.
Is there still a place for scraps of handy Jaguar insights? Even if sprinkled with an Aussie sense of off-beat humour / humor?
If so, I have some in my boot / trunk.

On the serious side, this discussion recalled my efforts aimed at Denso DVD units in the turn-of-century Jaguar SatNav (see General Tech Help forum).

I can help with a useful hint related to the cassette units discussed here. Many replacement parts, especially the critical rubber pinch roller, and even entire mechanisms are still available (check ebay, ali, amazon etc).

Most parts ship with complimentary cassette entitled "Best Of Barry Manilow" . . . although strangely, my copy was blank!

Cheers,

I wouldn’t leave a tape in the unit any longer than it takes to play it.

i used to repair cassette and 8-track players decades ago. A common issue is misalignment of the pick up head and the head getting magnetized from tapes left in the unit which degrades fidelity.

so clean the head with a Q-tip soaked in rubbing alcohol and let it dry before using . That’s all.

Z

i use mine occasionally just clean the head before use and have never had any issues

My dad had a mid-70s corvette with an 8 track - and an adapter to plug into the 8 track that allowed him to play cassettes!

Mine sat in a garage for eight years. The cassette player works fine. Finding a good tape has been a bit more of a challenge. On the brighter side, I discovered how good a singer Sinead O'Connor was. I bought a bunch of tapes off of fleaBay and that was one of two or three that actually worked.

Thanks all. I'll pick up a head cleaner and run it through - then maybe buy some obscure unopened, unused cheap cassette and see how that works before trying one that has been played repeatedly. If it works then I can start scouring for my greatest hits list from the 80s.

I thought of keeping a bunch of cassettes from the top 100 in 1999 (the year of the car) but my god the music was horrific that year.

I went with one of those adapter cassettes and plugged that into a Bluetooth receiver so I could connect my phone's Spotify. If you pull the player out of the dash you can completely hide the wire from the adapter to the BT receiver which I hid inside the console under the shifter bezel. The BT receiver powers up with the car and auto connected to my phone same as a modern car would do. Worked pretty well.

I have always used the demagnetizer I have for my reel to reel, as it has a rubberized nose piece that extends about 2", allowing me to reach the cassette head. Then I clean with extended Q-tips. You guys with that new fangled eight track. I'm still using the 4-track with the rising drive wheel. Seriously, I have a cassette and a CD in all of the family drivers. I have a top shelf Pioneer 9191 that turns out beautiful taped sound with or without metal enhancement. I cannot run out of materiel due to a still expanding 4000 strong LP collection. Music is taken seriously in the Peterson household. Now, if I were a better bodyman, could die with a smile.
PS- that is a genius bluetooth integration.

FWIW, the music quality with the adaptors that slide into the cassette player leave a lot on the table. Anyone, Anyone ! can readily tell the difference if that’s something that matters.

if you want decent sounds, I’m using CD quality as the baseline, then the easiest way to integrate your Bluetooth music source is to wire in one of the Discount Stereo adaptors. The cost is minimal and the job takes an hour or less. Mine has been installed about 6 years with no hiccups.

no dash disassembly required, just minimally invasive plug and play wiring at the CD changer in the boot / trunk

Z

https://www.discountcarstereo.com/bta-jag98.html

I use a cassette that instead of tape, has a bluetooth receiver and rechargeable battery. The battery lasts about 8 hours and I stream XM from my phone. Super easy and works great.

I'm really old school. I've never downloaded any digital music and still cart around a pretty extensive CD (and vinyl) collection on my many moves for the dot gov. The last earphones I owned were in the early 1990s when I had a diskman.

I do have a Sirius XM subscription in my Expedition but that's really only used for road trips - I work from home so I mostly listen to FM at home - and usually to the local NPR station because they play pretty good classical and jazz programs but also so I can listen to what the liberals are knee-jerking about today. My 5 year old likes listening to the Radio Classics show - old Superman and Detective radio shows. We don't have tablets or movies in our cars and hopefully she and her younger sister won't see a phone until they're out of the house.

I did just order a few more CDs though as well as a couple cassettes and a head cleaner.

I bought the same gadget a few years back versus spending a bunch of money to convert the existing system. It works remarkably well (at least for my needs of occasional Pandora streaming) and the only thing I don't like is the slight noise the spindles inside make since the cassette shafts are rotating when you insert the receiver/cassette. I suppose there is a way to eliminate that but just not that much of a big deal for me.

I am also an audio dinosaur and that will never change. I play my old vinyl LPs (probably at least 2,000 of them), my CDs (probably at least 1,000 of them) and my cassette tapes (probably at least 300 of them, most of them recorded by me from my LPs so I could play them in our vehicles back in the fabulous 1980s) on my vintage high-end home audio system. I have never downloaded or streamed music files and I never will (I gave up cell phones more than 27 years ago and my life is much simpler and happier and trouble-free as a result)....

I had a small collection of 60's and 70's vinyl that all got destroyed in a flood, I may never get over that.

Mine made a little noise, it was easily fixed with proper application of the volume control. My OCD however couldn't let it go so I opened the thing up and carefully applied some silicone grease to the gears. That eliminated the noise completely.