{"id":454,"date":"2018-03-03T19:30:17","date_gmt":"2018-03-03T19:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wiredwood.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=454"},"modified":"2018-03-04T08:30:08","modified_gmt":"2018-03-04T08:30:08","slug":"yamaha-kx-480-cassette-deck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.wiredwood.co.uk\/wordpress\/yamaha-kx-480-cassette-deck\/","title":{"rendered":"Yamaha KX-480 cassette deck."},"content":{"rendered":"

As part of my own personal polyester revival I bought this beauty.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Yamaha KX 480 cassette deck<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When I opened it up I found some surprises.<\/p>\n

Having re kindled my interest in cassettes with a nice walkman I wanted to add a cassette deck to my main HiFi. Ideally I would have liked something with mechanical meters and a silver finish for that true retro look. Balanced against that was the need to get something that worked well. I was looking for something with Dolby C. Not because I intended to use it, but because it is an indication of a higher end model.<\/p>\n

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Yamaha KX 480<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The KX-480 is a fairly high end cassette deck from the early 90’s. It was mine from a nice lady at a boot sale for just \u00a310. With features like Dolby B, C, and HX Pro. It also has an “auto tape tuning” feature, which sets the bias by recording test tones onto your tape and tweaking the settings to get best results.<\/p>\n

It was a bit dusty, but otherwise in excellent cosmetic condition. It is common for cassette decks to need replacement belts. They deteriorate over time,\u00a0 irrespective of how much the machine is used. Better get the lid off then.<\/p>\n

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KX 480 inside<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

First surprise. Where is the dust? This is cleaner than my mum’s front room!<\/p>\n

\"\"
KX 480 main belt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Second surprise. The drive belt is in excellent condition. No need to change that.<\/p>\n

\"\"
KX 480 circuit board<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Third surprise. The build quality within. I particularly like the circuit board layout. I used to design electronic circuit boards for a living, so I recognise class when I see it. This is well laid out. The legend clearly identifies all the components, as you would expect, but it goes further than that. Each section of the circuit is clearly labelled with it’s function.<\/p>\n

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KX 480 circuit provision for Dolby S<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You can see here where some components are missing. This isn’t a problem though, because the legend identifies this as the part of the circuit which handles Dolby S. This machine doesn’t have S, but the KX-580 model does. Clearly the same circuit board is used for several models in the Yamaha range.<\/p>\n

\"\"
KX 480 heads<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After cleaning and demagnetising the heads, which is standard maintenance, the 480 works like a dream and is a valued addition to my system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As part of my own personal polyester revival I bought this beauty. When I opened it up I found some surprises.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,11],"tags":[21],"class_list":["post-454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cassette","category-repair","tag-kx-480"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wiredwood.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wiredwood.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wiredwood.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wiredwood.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wiredwood.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.wiredwood.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":482,"href":"http:\/\/www.wiredwood.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454\/revisions\/482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wiredwood.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wiredwood.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wiredwood.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}