HS-P82 Knob Set Screw

[ABBloch]

Does anyone know what tool is needed to tighten the set screw in the HS-P82's trim knobs? One of my knobs has fallen off, and I'll be damned if I can find a tool that fits in that tiny little hole. It seems to be a hex key, maybe 0.5 mm or so.

I tried calling Tascam's parts department, but they had no clue. They gave me a number for some technical service line, but nobody answers that line. It just rings once or twice, beeps, and goes dead.

This is infuriating. It's their flagship product in the category, the most expensive audio item they make, and they can't even help with such a simple thing as a set screw. I'm starting to think I should have gone with Sound Devices, like everyone else.

Anyone have any idea?

 

[ABBloch]

This is only getting more and more frustrating. I spoke with someone in Tascam's operational services department, who was kind enough to email me the service manual for the HS-P82. It lists the screw in the parts list, but gives no specs on it, just a part number and tiny blotch of a diagram.

I did finally get through to the technical service line, only to find out they're not actually Tascam, just a contractor that they send their repairs to. Nobody there has ever worked on an HS-P82, so no one knows anything about this screw (or any other aspect of the unit). They said one of their technicians could research it, but that would "take him away from his job," so they don't want him to. Supposedly, they'll call back, if and when that research has been done. I strongly suspect it never will be, of course.

Somewhere. there's a guy whose job it is to sit in the factory, and put these knobs on HS-P82's all day. That guy has a screwdriver in his hand. There's got to be a way to find out what size it is.

Somewhere, there's a person who bought these specific screws, for the company to use. There's got to be a way to ask that person what they ordered.

I called operational support back, and presented those exact arguments. The rep answered, "The person with that screwdriver is in China, so there's no way to ask him."

I said, "OK, then, let me ask you this. I paid $3500 for this machine, and right now a 2-cent screw that nobody can tell me anything about is preventing me from using it properly. With that being the case, why should I ever buy another Tascam product again? I've been using your stuff for 30 years, but Sound Devices makes awfully nice stuff, and it's what most of the people in my field use. Why should I not convert?"

His answer, "Well, ours is a lot cheaper."

Wrong response, man! Clearly, I'm suffering now because I spent thousands of dollars on this "cheap" product.

I hate to say it after all this time as a loyal Tascam customer, but at this point, I'm pretty sure I'm done with them. As soon as I find a way to put this damned knob back on, I'm eBaying the unit, alog with my boatload of other Tascam gear, and I'm getting myself a nice 688. At least Sound Devices can tell me what size screws they use!

 

[Arjan P]

If you could take a macro photo of the screw (or zoom in to a high res photo), you can at least find out whether it's hex key or torx, torx+ or what have you.

 

[ABBloch]

I'm all but certain it's a hex, although it looks like whoever installed it stripped it a bit. That's probably why it came loose in the first place.

 

[Arjan P]

Yeah looks like hex indeed. Now for the size and the actual tool...

 

[ABBloch]

I received an email from Tascam customer service, just now. They said they reached out to someone in Japan, who reported back that the answer is 0.89 mm hex.

Needless to say, I was very pleasantly surprised to have received this message. I'd thought they'd simply resolved that they didn't have an answer, and that would be that. But someone over there kept going. Whoever it was, I appreciate it very much.

I've ordered a 0.89 mm hex wrench from Amazon. It should be here in a couple days. I'll report back if it works or not, in case anyone else has the same problem.

 

[Arjan P]

Ah well that's good! I was trying to find what Metric 0.89mm equals to in US inches, but it's not quite 1/32". Strange size..

 

[ABBloch]

Strange size, indeed. Now you see why I didn't have one on hand.

Nothing in fractional fits the bill at all, and the smallest metric size I could get locally is 1.5 mm, almost twice as big as what's needed.

 

[ABBloch]

I'm pleased to report that the 0.89 mm hex wrench did the job. I'm not sure who it was at Tascam who finally stepped up to find the answer, but whoever it was, I'm grateful.

Man, that wrench is tiny. I ended up dropping it twice, and had to go hunting for it both times. It's barely more than a stiffened wire. I may have to order a bag of them.

 

[Florian]

What? Did you just say that NOBODY AT THE OFFICIAL TASCAM SERVICE CONTRACTOR EVER WORKED ON A HS-P82? The unit was launched 8 years ago, so no unit was ever serviced?

That says A LOT about the buid quality of these units, especially for the price!

I was still trying to decide between the HS-P82 and the Roland R88 but after this I'm pretty sure I'll go TASCAM

Any chance I might receive the service manual? Thanks!

 

[ABBloch]

PM me your email address, and I'll send you that service manual.

To be fair, I'm not sure it's accurate to say no unit was ever serviced in 8 years. The guy I spoke with at the service shop did tell me Tascam used to do repairs in house, but had at some point switched to using his shop as their sole contractor. It's the contractor who's never repaired one. I have no idea if Tascam itself has or hasn't. Either way, it's been a few years since they made that switch, so it's still impressive, even if it's not the full 8 years.

The HS-P82 is a tank. The build quality is high, yes.

Other than those aforementioned loosened knobs (which have remained tight in the months since I started this thread), I've only had one other issue. The wiring harness to the headphone jack/volume control assembly got partially dislodged somehow, causing the sound in the headphones to be a little distorted. I opened it up, reseated that harness, and have had no further troubles.

The HS-P82 is also a heck of a lot easier to use than the R88, by the way. The touch interface is a dream. The HS-P82 is far and away the most user-friendly field recorder I've ever laid hands on.

The R88 is kind of an odd beast, sort of a music-film hybrid, with features from the one that you won't use for the other, which come at the expense of a few you would use if it were more singularly focused on either one. The HS-P82 is intended solely for film work, and for that it is superb.

My only lasting complaints about the HS-P82 are the weight, and the lack of auxiliary routing outputs. You do get used to the weight, but still, you're always aware of it. As for the routing, well, that's just what you get at this price range. I'm currently building a small outboard box, which should add some additional flexibility.

 

[Florian]

That's nice to know. I was a bit fearful of the Tascam because I previously worked with a DR40, DR 100 mkII and DR680, and all three gave me headaches. The DR680 wouldn't lock on to external digital sync sometimes, and it made life on set a real headache, sometimes not booting up, freezing randomly, I even lost a take once, until I finally tracked the problems to its power source. But since the lost take I never relied on it again for set recording.

At the same time I know the Edirol R4 and R4 PRO and also the Roland R44 are famous for their stability and build quality but have some drawbacks in sound quality (hissy preamps) but even so I did manage to mix sound for a feature film on an R4 pro and was impressed overall.

So with this comparison in mind I was a bit fearful about the HSP82. However I do own the HD-P2 which has amazing build quality and exceptional sound quality as well.

At the moment I think I will purchase the HSP82 new and save up for the R88 second hand, because:

HSP82 - with the fader unit is an awesome, future-proof cart-based recorder which can also take digital inputs and can also send digital outputs to a digiral SDI audio embedder for full backup.

I would rather have this then the MixPre10T which has no digital capability and is, in my opinion, a step backwards for Sound Devices recorders from a technological advancement point of view.

R88 - with which I can use any MIDI fader (Behringer Xtouch looks amazing) - also a cart-based recorder with great MIDI control support, it can even do EQ which I would love to have. With its 8 analogue outputs I can also send this to an analogue audio SDI embedder to get full backup.

Too bad the two can't be wordclock linked, I wonder if one of the units can clock to AES without having to record that input?

This unit is amazing for me especially for its ability to work as a sound interface at the same time while recording internally, this could mean 3 full backups and instant access to all the recordings on the set, which would help a lot in getting better sound (having the ability to see a spectogram in real time can be very useful)

 

[ABBloch]

Your experience with the DR-680 is interesting. I used one for a few years, myself. I actually did 15 features on that little sucker, and an untold number of commercials, TV spots, etc. For a $500 mixer, it's a trooper. It works well for what it is. It just can't be expected to be anything it's not.

I did once miss a take on it, when it refused to roll, due to overheating (on a ridiculously hot set, on an August day). Other than that, no issues.

Sorry to hear you had trouble with yours. Power supply issues can cripple any device, obviously. I found the 680 worked very, very well with a 10Ah Tracer LiPO battery. I used to get nearly 2 days out of that thing, with never a hiccup.

Speaking of power, the HS-P82 is an energy hog, just so you know. For that, I use a pair of 32Ah Poweradd Pilot Pros. I get about 8 hours out of each, running at 12V. I swap them each day at lunch, and have never had any issues. (The Tracer that could go 2 days powering the DR-680 lasts about 4-5 hours on the HS-P82, by the way.)

As for backups, I'm sure you'll love the HS-P82's dual card system. There are always 2 copies of everything (and I also usually run 2 camera hops, so that's 4 copies).

Further, you don't lose the current take if you do lose power, which is a really nice feature. It writes and saves the raw audio data in real time. Worst case, you might just need to do a little bit of file header repair, if the file doesn't have time to get finalized, but the audio will always be there, either way. That's actually saved my life twice now, on shoots when I forgot to swap batteries, due to not having had a proper lunch break.


I do agree with you, by the way, that realtime spec analysis is a great thing. I used to do that, back when I was strictly a cart-based mixer. The laptop was always there for spec and wave display. These days, I'm nearly always one-manning it, though, so I couldn't pay attention to a spectrogram, even if I wanted to.

That said, I've found the Spectroid app on my tablet to be super useful for getting a general idea of the soundscape. It's not as accurate as a computer-based system, of course, but it's good enough to be able to judge whether or not ambient noise will be subtractable without noticeably affecting dialog. It's great to be able to walk up and SHOW the AD what's going on, rather than just tell.

"Hey, you see those lines right there? Those are the hum of that refrigerator in the next room. See these wavy blobs that appear when I talk? That's where the dialog will be. See how the wavy blobs and the lines are in the same range on the graph? That means the fridge needs to be unplugged. Please tell G&E to do that. Now, you see these dots over here, way above the wavy blobs? Those are the beeps from that answering machine the PA's have been trying to figure out how to disable for the past half hour. Those dots can taken out in 2 clicks, so quit stressing over the damned beeps, and let's roll."

It may sound silly when typed out like that, but I've actually had that exact conversation.