Cassette player extremely Quiet
Thread Starter
1st Gear
Joined: Mar 2016
Posts: 1
Likes: 0
From: Kansas
Cassette player extremely Quiet
I have a 1990 C4 with the Bose non-gold stereo, and I'm trying to figure out what to do with the tape player. I want to keep the original stereo for both reasons of originality and not wanting to go through the headache that I've heard it is messing with replacing the stereo given the... unique amp system. The problem is whenever I play a cassette in the stereo (and I've tried 4 different ones), it's extraordinarily quiet. The radio is normal volume enough to where I can hurt my ears pretty dang well if I turn it up, but the cassette system it really is shockingly quiet. I'm getting irritated with using a radio transmitter to use Spotify and would prefer to use the tape adapter as those don't suck nearly as much. Any ideas as to what in the player might cause this?
Le Mans Master
Joined: Feb 2000
Posts: 9,061
Likes: 214
From: Epping NH
Likely culprit is the tape head is either dirty or bad. If you can see the tape head try cleaning it with rubbing alcohol and a q-tip. Personally I think a bluetooth to FM transmitter works great, that is what I use...only downside is that in cities where there is a lot of FM stations I sometimes run into interference.
You could try finding a cassette head cleaner as the next option.
But when all said is and done I suspect the tape mechanism is bad, not sure how they are built in our cars, but I know home decks I've worked on have rubber belts that stretch and springs that loosen up over time even when rarely used...a 27 year old cassette deck is probably dealing with the same issues.
I know there are some places where you can get the stereos rebuilt, top of my head though don't recall where.
You could try finding a cassette head cleaner as the next option.
But when all said is and done I suspect the tape mechanism is bad, not sure how they are built in our cars, but I know home decks I've worked on have rubber belts that stretch and springs that loosen up over time even when rarely used...a 27 year old cassette deck is probably dealing with the same issues.
I know there are some places where you can get the stereos rebuilt, top of my head though don't recall where.
Last edited by bac22; Aug 25, 2017 at 09:54 AM.
