Ok look. I've tried registering on Tapeheads a few times. Every single time the administrator(s) have ultimately declined my request. The first time ages ago I cancelled when I saw that date of birth was required, which is frankly ridiculous for an analogue cassette forum. It was at the exact same time I was looking to make an account here and I ended up making one on this forum and not bothering with Tapeheads at all for this reason. About a year or so later I tried again and after finishing what I thought was the process, I was dismayed to find that my account STILL needed to be manually approved by an admin... WOW. Ultimately a few days later the account was declined without any reason whatsoever. Just nothing. Some months after that I tried another time but this time I never got an answer to the approval request. After some weeks or months I tried logging in just to get the error that the account doesn't exist. So it was obviously declined after a long wait but I never found out why. A few days ago I just tried again and today I got a reply that my account has been denied AGAIN. This time the reason is that my location is not specific enough. Excuse me but what the heck? I input my location in as "Europe". Why should I have to be more specific than this? They already ask for my birth day, month and year and then they want my location as well. Am I supposed to just flat-out lie then? If I am incentivised to lie to protect my privacy, what is even the point then? Furthermore, I've read a lot of threads on there where it seems things like openly swearing and arguing with people seems fine and there are instances of this I can see going back even as far as 2013. Hence one of the main reasons why it took me so long to even want to bother registering, because the community seems toxic. In fact, the only real reason I wanted to register is because there are some service manuals and other files on the site. For example, I want access to this service manual for the HS-PC202: https://www.tapeheads.net/attachments/hs-pc202m2-pdf.105381/ but I need an account to download it. The irony here when it's not even THEIR file, but something someone else shared out of the goodness of their own heart but of course the admins put a lock and key in front of it. NICE /s Why are they like this? This kind of paranoid, gatekeeping, user-UNFRIENDLY mentality is just absurd to me. They don't seem to give a damn about people fighting on the forum or being openly toxic and condescending. So why take all the effort into trying to fingerprint users online in the first place and manually review accounts based on DOB and Location? Least of all impose 90s-era rules of "You gotta register before you can view file attachments" and then go even further to MANUALLY APPROVE accounts. Before someone says it's "for legal compliance". They already get your IP address which is a far more identifiable and reliable way of getting your location. Whereas anything someone could write on the registration page can be a lie. What kind of control freaks run that site? EDIT: Could someone who has an account there please just at least share the .pdf I linked? I couldn't be bothered to try and register a FOURTH time.
Downloaded O.K. from here https://elektrotanya.com/aiwa_hs-j202_hs-j202m_hs-j800.pdf/download.html#google_vignette
I wouldn't worry about Tapeheads, every time I've tried to post it has been rejected because I've only put the equipment name and no reason why I'm posting.
Whoops. I was in a rush as my wife wanted to go to the shops. In the past I have found Elektrotanya to be a good source of service manuals if you can find the download button amongst all the pop ups.
Archive.org is a good place to search for all kinds of PDFs, but it's rather daunting to find what you're looking for
I am in tape head's net the website. I've been there for a long time but under a different name which is: ( decentman4you ) ... And every time I post something it gets moderated and or not posted until I don't know when. Audio karma and I think video karma are a couple other sites that I'm in but I haven't been to in quite some time....
I haven't been able to get on tapeheads for a month or so. I just get the message on the screenshot below. I actually liked the forum but I seem to be blacklisted for things I can't control.
I've been on there for years and don't have an issue except if I'm running a VPN, it won't let me sign in. I'm wondering if asking for a birthday is a requirement of the hosting company? As far as the PDF's, it costs money to upload/download files and then they end up on ebay. There's a ton of web scrappers that probably make it expensive to run a site with free view PDFs. They've been a very good asset to the hobby, hopefully they can get your issues resolved. A lot of these sites were started when the owners were, I'd guess, in their 50's, now that's over 20 years ago so management might not be a fast as they used to be.
I've got the ssame issue, similar to @Gene Wiseman My laptop on Windows 11, which I can use Edge or Chrome, take me to a completely blank page! I'm certain it's something with updated browser security. but I can't figure out what setting has blocked it! Windows 11 has done auto-updates several times last several months, so I think something has changed while I have not visited Tapeheads.net in a while... My Windows 10 computer goes right on, exactly same network for both, and I don't use a VPN. Behaves as normal! I have checked to see if I accidently blocked tapeheads, but there is no mention of the site in the security part of the browswer control panels for either Chrome or Edge. My iPhone at least goes to the site, but gives me exactly same message @Gene Wiseman , but this looks like some apple secutity feature, "iCloud Private Relay" in Safari... but since I can't read the site on my iphone I won't do anything with that... I do wish I could get onto Tapeheads on my Windows 11 machine. Any advice appreciated! mike in SC
Went back to check EDGE after an update, now it works! Chrome still no-go: but found this interesting article from JUNE 2025, I'm OK just using EDGE as long as I can get where I need to!! https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveyw...cked-google-chrome-windows-11-users-complain/
@Mister X which one do you use? I tried using duckduckgo but get frustrated by what doesn't work... and I'm too lazy to install Linux... just curious.. regards
I'm in a pinch, Firefox is barely holding on with older OS's and they recently sold their soul and aren't so private anymore. Most of my computers are old stuff but my work computer is newer and I've been trying Brave although I don't like to do internet browsing on that computer. With all the devices that listen now, I'm wondering if anything is safe. I don't like to have personal conversations around TVs and phones cuz as soon as you say "waterbed" near one, the ads start popping up on a computer in a different room. We might never realize how interconnected all these devices are until it's too late.
@Mister X I'm with you... when I talk to my son about needing a shed in the back yard, "Costco" sheds pop up in my feed! When my wife complained her knee hurt, we got ads for knee braces! I used to use FireFox exclusively, but a couple years ago gave up on that. I tried DuckDuckGo, but it has some frustrating limitations... I tried to turn off some Google listening, but then things start to not work so well... I finally gave up! hate to say it. I do turn on 2-factor authentication whenever it's available, but still worry someone will figure out how to hack that too! And if you get a private VPN, I've heard some sites (maybe Vinyl Engine) won't work ... We seem doomed to be sucked in by Big Brother" as long as we have this digital addiction! How did we even live without cell phones when kidswe? we would ride bikes 15 miles to go see friends, on back roads, and our parents didn't even know where we were!! Not sure those were good old days, but we had more privacy and independence!!
Part of the problem is that all the alternatives like Yellow Pages disappeared years ago. Did you guys have "Exchange and Mart"? A weekly magazine full of noting but adverts for sheds, bikes, knee braces etc. There was even a more specialist "Micro Mart" for computers. I actually sold a few through them. More specialist stuff could be more difficult, although when I wanted a specific breakout box for a Roland Soundcard I just started phoning the different music shops advertising in a music magazine until I found one who had one in stock.
