Last night I stopped in at the local Goodwill to give a quick perusal of what was available. They close at 8PM and it was 7:55PM. I headed straight for the electronics section and saw a black boombox, but alas, it was only a cheap Magnavox.

Then I spotted it - a Philips N5631 tape deck. I didn't have time to test it out and wasn't too sure I wanted to buy it.

Anyway, after doing some searching for it last night on Google and whatnot, it appears that Philips decks, in general, are difficult to find. So, this morning I went back and picked it up for $10. I've never seen a cassette deck with a built-in limiter!

Cosmetically, it's at least a 9 out of 10. It's going to need some work inside though - the transport buttons don't seem to lock in place.

Wow, a built in limiter!!! Very, very cool!

Congrats on this great find...

I wonder how it records!!! You have got to play with that limiter and tell us how it performs! I'm thinking its for recording only, similar to an auto-level vs. manual level adjust.

Can you pop it open and check if its a two or a three head deck? And where was it made? Germany or Japan would be my two guesses.

It actually looks like an old Pioneer CT-F series deck... And if its a three head unit, you really scored!

Yeah, JT, the whole limiter thing has me puzzled/excited. I can't wait to get this thing working correctly. Unfortunately, it's only a two-head deck. However, I'm not complaining.

I'm opening it up right now.

looks great man ,i sure do love the looks of the old stereo equipment with huge milled aluminum knobs and brushed aluminum face ,looks realy classy ,i would have bought it for looks alone.

It definitely has a belt problem.



On the back side, there's a switch labeled "RIF 1/2" that I have no clue what that is. It's also loose.



Well, there's your problem. The board has snapped out of the holder.



And what the heck is all this? The deck supposedly has a record timer function. Are all these gears related to that?

Very nice, but from what I can see I believe the delay ergots are just about ollas, and the ocarina gears need major entoil. Omen.

All I know is that the fohn mechanism is a royal pane in the jeed. It makes you want to say, "Fop!" and "Fique!"

To be honest, I did get aroise out of it when I saw those pictures.

nice deck!I have to agree with JT..Very similar to the blue series ct-f-decks from Pioneer.

Hope you get it sorted bobby!

Very sweet Bobby! That looks like a similar logic system that the Aiwa 990 uses.

them gears are related to the soft touch piano keys of the operation of the deck

Well...now I've got to post some of my "old" stuff! Congrats Bobby. She looks sweet!

Alright... here's the deal. This bad boy takes at least four belts. I've managed to replace three of them with new ones. The fourth belt is quite the boondoggle. It's the one for REW and possibly helps out the PLAY fuction too. I can't begin to get to it without disassembly instructions. It fast-forwards fine and tries to play, but without that last belt, it's just not 100%.

I've put it back together and taken some new shots of it powered on. I'm going to list it on eBay and see what happens, BUT I thought I'd give you guys a shot at it first. For S2G members, the price is $20 plus $15 shipping to Continental US.

DETAILS:

• Two-Head Cassette Mechanism
  
• Dolby-B Noise Reduction
  
• MPX Filter
  
• Built-In Limiter
  
• Two Mono Microphone Inputs (L & R)
  
• Headphone Jack
  
• Separate L/R Record Levels for Input and/or Mic
  
• 3-Digit Counter
  
• Blue Fluorescent Peak/Output Meters
  
• Front Loading
  
• Supports Normal/Chrome/Metal Tapes
  
• Belt Drive
  
• Mechanical Tape Loading
  
• Machined Aluminum knobs
  
• Backlighted and toplighted cassette window
  

First one to PM me wins!

What a gorgeous machine FD!

WOW!!! it looks great. I love the cassette illumination lamp,classy!

quote:

Originally posted by JT:
It actually looks like an old Pioneer CT-F series deck... And if its a three head unit, you really scored!

I guess I'll need to post mine!

dont play cassette's

Is it feasible to get that big guy fixed?Im rooting for ya!80s walkmans rule!Kristi Carr

Sweet Fatdog! I really dig those blue florescent lights. I have to agree with the Pioneer coments, the first thing I thought when I saw it was it was a Pioneer.

Has been listed on eBay. I hated to do it, but I have too many other projects right now and this deck was just going to take too much time.