Good video. I didnt recognize his demagger
I use a HanDMag
I guess the question needs to be asked.....
how often does one demag their player?
according to some, every 50 hours and IIRC Paul Stubblebine from the Tape Project says not at all. Im sure there must be a happy medium somewhere in between.
I was interested that in the video he says not tomtouch the heads with the demagger. Some say to gently touch the heads. The strength of the magnet in the HandMag is such that when it gets close to something metal it is attracted like a bee to honey and sometimes becomes imposible not to touch the heads.
I remember that thread. So how often do you demag.
Let me repeat my response to the original thread on this:
I think this demag thaang may be overrated.
From my perspective, a head can (only) get magnetized in two ways. Exposing it to some fairly large external magnetic field, or applying some kind of electrical impulse to its coil. If you believe this then to mitigate "one", I'd keep anything that could be magnetic - like (magnetized?) tools as far away from the heads as possible. As regards "two" it seems that the only way you might screw this up is possibly removing/inserting a headblock with the power on.
I've actually never come across or "heard" a magnetized head. When working on a deck, as a matter of course I do demagnetize everything in the tape path when finished and before loading the "first" tape - especially (expensive) calibration tapes. If you think about it also, most well designed heads are quite well shielded, with pretty narrow "windows" - the only place where magnetizing flux can actually get in. You'd have to have a pretty strong field in close proximity to the head to do anything "permanent". Of course I have reversed the connections to my preamp (tape head to output instead of the input) and recorded hum and noise on the tape when "playing around" wondering why I wasn't hearing any signal. And of course the tape I was playing was a WONDERFUL dupe - what an as*****.
AND LET ME NOW ADD TWO ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS:
Regarding the comment that too much demagnetizing might do damage - Hmm.
I forgot to mention that when demagnetizing I ALWAYS do it with the (at least one wire per channel of the) head DISCONNECTED from the electronics.
Think about this - a demagnetizer generates a GIGANTIC AC signal in the head - (both are only trying to do what it they are supposed / designed to do) - a signal maybe orders of magnitude larger than EVER encountered when playing a tape. As this signal is WAY more than the electronics expect OR may be designed to handle, I can understand that the process COULD damage electronics and more frequent demag more-so.
That's why I've found I only have to do it once.
And another thing - a demagnetizer generates an AC field, so theoretically it CAN'T leave any residual effects (on a head). HOWEVER, you shouldn't position it near a head when switching it on or off - especially off, as a residual pulse from switching off a demag coo close to a head could magnetize it. Therefore I always make sure that my demagnitizer is 2 or 3 feet away from the headblock before switching it on or off.
And of course; please don't have any tape "lying around" when you're playing demag games!
Charles
I was just about to start a new thread with the "to demag or not to..." headline...in my case, and following again the expert words of Bruce, Ki and Charles, I did demag the Nagra T to bring it back to life! I am converted!
![]() | Steve Williams Site Founder | Site Owner | Administrator | ![]() | Ron Resnick Site Owner | Administrator | ![]() | Julian (The Fixer) Website Build | Marketing Managersing |