[bootray]

Originally Posted by Unidecker

also i clean my own decks and have them repaired by the oade brothers as they are my peeps
and have done so since the 80s and still today only have one dat deck and one casette deck left and sold off all the others to other tapers
to do the same with..

The oade brothers! I forgot all about them. Do you know if they repair
Analog?? They modded a fellow tapers Sonic Studios mics many years ago. But it's academic if there are no replacement parts available.
A friend suggested 3D scanning to manufacture another idler wheel
but that may be cost prohibitive considering 3D scanning,SolidWorks file prep and 3d printing as well. I bet it might work but imagine the expense
of engineering.
But to be realistic I may never need my Tcd5m again, except for listening
to tapes occasionally. It's such a fine deck, I'll never find better.
Stereophile magazine called it the only audiophile portable recorder.
My Denon is great but,the Tcd5m is better.
As far tapes are concerned, to quote Frank Zappa:
"No way to delay that trouble comin' every day"
Ray