Vestax Vestafire 4 Track no sound

[soul]

Long shot here... I am trying to digitize my old 4 track recordings.

I bought the same Vestax 4 track I made them on for $40 on eBay last year. It wouldn't power up, so I opened it and found a loose connection, which then made it work!! I checked it quickly and everything seemed ok, then I put it away until now.

NEW problem: There is no sound from the cassette! I can hear the audio out (noisefloor etc) but there is no sound from the tapes (tried a couple). I have opened it up and poked around, I can't find any loose connections. Does anyone have an idea of where the issue might be?

Thanks!!
(here is a pic of the inside)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zqsKcWTZIhJxkCnlVpg0iDVvcYafdrHF/view?usp=sharing

 

[-mjk-]

I found a $20 dollar cassette player with a 16-bit USB interface. If you use one of those, and just record both sides of the cassette, then you can use a DAW to flip the tracks and line them up as necessary.

 

[soul]

Ah, true! good point, I've actually got a decent jvc cassette deck I could use, was just hoping to bring this thing back to life for the import. Are you able to see any obvious locations in the photo that might be culprit for loose/bad connection? Or do you think is it likely one of the components died? thanks

 

[-mjk-]

Sorry, no idea.

 

[SkywaveTDR]

If amplifier noise is present and you already found a broken solder joint in there, there are probably many more broken joints to deal with. I resolder almost entire boards on the stuff I fix which is much more expensive than this thing from a no-name brand. Did you clean the heads as this is never mentioned. Too many from the digital era know nothing about cleaning heads but it still needs to be done.

 

[Borchmore]

I have a Vestafire MR-30 (looks like yours is an MR-10?). Had the same issue once after I dropped it, but it seemed to resolve after cleaning and checking the wires. Seems like you already did that though so I don't have any advice other than what others have said. Let us know if you figure it out though! Would certainly be helpful if I or anyone else run into this problem in the future