So sorry it did not work out. We are often called the last resort. It might indeed be better to just buy a restored player, but that would not have made this great video. The second generation players (DCC 300,305,600,380,91 and 450 f.i.) do not have the capacitor issues. All players need work, no matter what generation. Part of the plastic 90ies construction as well. Thanks again for your support and mention on your channel. We will do what we can do get you a working player.

Hi Colin, soldering nerd here. A couple of points: 1. That first board is definitely repairable. From the images you showed it's the kind of thing I could do in an hour or two. It would look a little messy when done but is preferable to trashing a board. 2. SMD caps should be easy to solder quickly. The trick is to tin one pad, place the cap on top with a finger to steady it, and melt the solder. The cap will drop into the pool of solder. Then you can go to the other side, and solder that with a second or two of heat. Shouldn't need more than two seconds of heat on each pad.

Thx for all nit and gritty. I do to believe in saving our days in real music format. Lucky i have been buying my time. In having two DCC players. PHILIPS 900 AND OPTIMUS Unit. Because of your video i had forgot were i seen info on Repairing DCC unit. I thought it was in L.A. but was not sure were. Thank so very much for your posting. ROCK ON!!! Marvin from Northern California..

Although the start of the video seems it will end in gloom and doom and it did, but after watching almost all of your videos, I know you are not a person who easily gives up and certainly, you did not disappoint.

This shows real dedication and attention to detail. Great job.

The DCC was a truely cursed format. I had the Technics deck and it failed under four years, same thing no sound. I was glad to see the back of my deck. I spoke to an engineer who said if you ran a dirty old analog type 1 cassette through your deck, then a new DCC tape it would strip the head as it was that fragile. The irony is an analog cassette deck with a type 2 or 3 tape is capable of good audio, with Dolby C 80-90db dynamic range and up to 22khz on a good deck (I have a Yamaha deck which is excellent). Wow and flutter can't be totally eliminated but should be fairly low on a good, well serviced machine.

Dr. DCC is *THE* man to go to for all things DCC. i applaud your efforts to attempt to fix this and make a video about it. I was one of those guys who bought the 1000 new in box dcc and had Dr. DCC restore it. I bought into DCC when it first came out and ive had several decks over the years due to the leaky caps that crop up on the first gen units. that said, i still love the DCC 900 because it was the first model. I also have a DAT machine (sony pcm 7040) and TWO MZ-1's i bought when sony launched these decks. they are still brand new and I still use them to this day. there is a certain character about these first gen units that i like, this is why i chose them over the later ones with more features, etc.

Thanks for sharing! Very well produced video. Sorry you didn't get the outcome you wanted but the insights you shared are very valuable.

I am not a DCC expert, but since you do have a scope, my suggestion would be to trace out the signal and see at what point you lose it. Since you have a schematic/service manual that wouldn't be hard to do. That already tells as so much more in what direction we have to look and think. But I also don't know if you have the time and patience to troubleshoot this any further? edit; reading the comments; yes along the same lines check all the oscillators and such as well

Having spent a lifetime in electronic repair work, the one type of component i dislike the most is surface mounted components. These were introduced to make manufacturing faster and cheaper, but not repairing pcb's that are damaged by leaking capacitors. Once the acidic paste leaks under other components, then sits there for a few years, it destroys everything in its path. Sorry to hear that you have spent a lot of time and money trying to get a working player. I have often made the same mistake, especially with Laserdisc playes, thinking that they only need a few more capacitors to get it working. It's good to hear that there are people like DR DCC with the experience to return repairable samples to full working order. Experience and the knowledge to know when to stop fitting expensive parts in a no hope repair counts for a lot.

Thanks for sharing the story. Other KZfaqrs say that posting "it still doesn't work" is not good, but I'm glad you did.

Great effort to address the issues on the boards, sad to see you couldn't succeed at it but I learned a lot about DCC internals with this video, hope you have better luck with DCC in the future!

I'm always so intimidated by repairs but can occasionally get things fixed when I slow myself down. Looks like a nice dcc, shame it went through such a journey.

Legally blind subscriber here. I imagine myself doing this repairs through you as I am incapable of doing it myself. Thanks for the awesome content. Sadly old technology is still expensive here and shipping costs are through the roof due to import laws. Keep up the awesome content! Stay healthy and cheers from Philippines!

Hate to see a project not workout. However, its important to show these adventures, even if they end in failure. It shows others who want to get into repairing retro tech that sometimes there isn't always an easy fix. Sometimes, it even ends in lost money. I still enjoyed the video! Hopefully in the recent future a replacement part or idea falls into your lap!

I don't own a DCC, never owned one, and have no plans to buy one but I still enjoyed watching your video. I've been through similar experiences when I repaired both my McIntosh DVD and CD players.

Been there before with vintage hardware. Walkmans and old computers have bitten me many many times. Sometimes you win some, sometimes you loose. But at least along the way you learn something new! Still loved the video as it's featuring something that is not common at all.

i always love the part in This Does Not Compute videos where he says "so, i bought another one"

Thanks for sharing an honest attempt. It's important to remember that not every tech repair goes right, and to not beat one's self up too much when they don't. After all, this unit is about 30 years old now.

Super bummed you couldn’t get it working. Even with the video title, I expected a positive outcome. Very impressed with the effort you put in, though, and thanks for sharing.

I'm sorry that the repair/restoration didn't go as planned but I really enjoy watching how you go through and troubleshoot. It is rewarding to me to be more patient and take my time in life.

I'm sorry you had such bad luck with DCC. At the DCC Museum we see lots of success stories but we know some enthusiasts aren't so lucky. That first recorder's read-write board was definitely too far gone to repair and we're considering making compete replaced circuit boards with all new parts except for the read/write amplifier chips. Anyway, I see you got the right analog channel to work, so believe it or not, you were probably really close! The non-polarized capacitors also go bad on the read/write board, and if I'm not mistaken, the audio for analog playback goes through those. You can replace each of them with two polarized electrolytic caps that are double the value of the original, connected in series with the opposite poles connected to each other. You didn't show the error display in service mode after you had fixed the via with the bodge wire, but I wouldn't be surprised if at least some of the tracks were working now, and a thorough head cleaning might have fixed it. Also, I noticed on the second recorder the connector for the flex cable on the digital pcb looks kind of damaged. Did you try using the digital pcb from the first recorder into the second recorder? It's really unfortunate that DCC recorders are getting pretty hard to find in the United States now. I got back into DCC around 2013 and back then it was easy to find all kinds of DCC decks for around a hundred dollars or so. Right now you would have to go to the Dutch eBay or other Dutch sales sites to find anything other than the DCC900. But of course then there's the problem that they usually only work on 220 volts.

techmoan: "Give me some belts and contact cleaner ... there you are now working!".

I admire you commitment to old technology. I once had an impulse back in 2008/2009 buying old electronics and living in the past. I gave up as many of them are just to brittle, damaged and basically unrepairable. Sad these things are lost in time but I have learnt it is an expensive hobby and not worth it being now in my mid 40s. Good luck and keep the videos coming.

Back in the day, I went to Radio Shack to check out their DCC deck. I asked the sales guy (who was probably no more than 20, at the time), if I could have a listen. He asked if I had heard a Minidisc (I hadn't). So, he told me to go check that out, first (like he was steering folks away). End result? Nearly 30 years later, I still have a sizeable MD collection (& no DCC).

Thanks a lot for sharing your experience! No matter it didn't go as planned, it was very educational and professionally presented, as all your videos. I do appreciate it!

Great work showing a honest view of things! Specially where all other channels are more crazy about happy endings and feel-good focus.

“Capacitor failure is a function of time, not usage” is the real takeaway here. I just re-belted my regular 1992 Sony cassette deck, and while it works great now, cap failure is always in the back of my mind.

Could it be that there are some delaminated oscillator crystals on the board that wreck havoc?

I couldn't even tell you what your niche is. But you fill it perfectly. Keep the awesome content coming!

Both models made in Japan by Marantz, the third partner in development and part of Philips at the time. The newer models with decks that were made by Philips themselves in Austria, didn't suffer from the Japanese leaky SMD electrolytics problem that many camcorders suffered from as well.

Feel your pain. I’m sending my technics boards to dr DCC next week so hopefully the postal service in this area of Minnesota treats me good. Thank you for the fun and quality videos.

Sometimes it just never works out. I am sorry to hear of your problems. I have a similar problem with my car stereo and have already bought one new CD changer. Some of the old tech others loved and we want to love, just won't be available to us latecomers. I also wanted a DCC deck but realised that the cost had already reached silly money. I agree with all of your conclusions.

I just noticed watching, and listening to, this video that the tone and cadence of your voice is fit for narration and just makes me feel assured nothing bad is ever going to happen.

Unfortunate ending, but you've managed to get a great story, and some valuable experience. At least you gave it a try! Keep making some of the best videos out there.

We love the sound of the DCC!!! We mixdown our recorded multi track music from our TASCAM DP-32 direct to DCC, and the quality is so good we do not master our final product! You can hear our albums on our KZfaq channel.

Hey Colin, great video as always. Man I feel for you after watching this video. Well done for giving it your all and at least you managed to get a good informative video out of it that could help potential buyers think twice about getting into the format. Look forward to more great content in the future and keep up the great work mate 👌👍 All the best. Jamie

I tried to repair the exact same model 4 years ago, but same result after recaping the digital board, I gave up on DCC DECK but insteal repair portable player such as DCC175 and DCC170 both succefully repair and work great.

Wow, what a bummer. Good luck man, thanks for the video.

I had the same experience with the 900 decks. Sank a lot of money into two unfixable ones. So I gave up. Now I have a 36mm midi sized DCC-91. Excellent condition, no problems so far. But I live in Europe, so the supply of decks is somewhat better. I hope you find a working--or at least repairable--one someday.

Definitely try and get a later generation deck if you can, even if you have to get it from overseas. I live in Australia and got into DCC about 6 years ago when I bought a DCC 900, which just didn't play tapes at all. Like you I wasn't able to fix it and was disappointed, but kept a look out for a later generation deck. Ended up getting a 951, which I imported from the Netherlands, which I've had for about 6 years now, and apart from needing a head clean a few weeks ago, hasn't skipped a beat. Just be aware of voltage differences - being that we use 240V here in Australia this wasn't an issue for me, I just replaced the Euro power cord with an Aussie one and it worked out of the box, but being in North America may be an issue for you.

It is a nice to see a schematic with a device and even repair diagram, good luck find this in a new devices.

Hated to see it end up going south, here's hoping an answer emerges ... Always enjoy your work, regardless, thank you for sharing!

Hello from Germany! With the end of the 90s there were some amount of used DCC Hardware from private sellers available. I bought a DCC900 with around 80 DCC-tapes (also some originals included) for around 200 EUR at that time. Had also the DCC600, DCC730 and the mobile one, all for a reasonable price. And i have seen still DCC Tapes in store (in the bigger ones). Today the prices gone crazy for DCC. It is better to play with another obsolete media like cassette or minidisc.

This was a really interesting video and I was really hoping for a good outcome for you. I love audio a lot and especially old audio tech. Great video, subscribed.

Your predicament reminds me a lot of my own experience trying to get my Sony TCK96R analog cassette deck working right. Funny thing is it has the same problem as your DCC deck has when playing analog tapes - one channel is way too quiet. I've replaced caps, transistors, made all the adjustments I can think of or find in the service manual, and nothing ever fully fixed it. I gave up too, after having spent probably 30-40 total hours on it. Win some, lose some I guess. I still have my deck sitting at the bottom of my audio rack in case I ever find someone who can fix it right, but it's beyond me. btw, I worked at J&R Music World in NYC in the 90's and we closed out these DCC decks for $99. I remember thinking "should I buy one? Nah..." Always been one of my big regrets.

Great video, great effort to try and fix. Don't beat yourself up, these things are so damn touchy.

That first read/write board is definitely salvageable with enough time and skill. Between the two units you have, I think there's an extremely good chance of getting at least one working. If you'd be interested in talking, I'm willing to take a look and spend the hours needed. I have a lot of electronics experience, and access to all the necessary tools and equipment. At the absolute minimum, I can restore that RW board. Actually, if there's interest, I could produce a run of replacement PCBs. It would require salvaging the chips off the original board, but the rest are just commodity items.

The more you dig, the deeper you get. But every shovel full you'll gain experience and hopefully gold. I understand those old units have larger and thicker gold contacts. MAYBE???

Damn. Such a cool device. It's so sad that you didn't repaired it.

As bad as the original board appears there is still a chance of repairing it. It may never look pretty, but to me it seems that there is still enough of it to work with. That isn't to say that there may not be other issues on the board beyond the obvious but as far as trace and pad repairs are concerned it has to be at least worth a try. I have repaired/restored lots of equipment with similar damage with more success than failures. It's all about how you value your time or how determined you are. Karl

Thanks for your vid. It was very informative.

It’s interesting and nice to see how modular the components are, it’s just unfortunate how it still didn’t work after all that time. Still a great video though a lot of information about DCC!

Seeing this video keeps reminding me that I have to eventually check the caps in the pioneer radio receiver that I have that's around 45 years old now. It still works, but speaker channels are finicky. The thing's heavy as hell, though, so moving its gonna be a pain.

Thank you for having us being a part of this Journey. It could be an alignment problem, What happens if you record analog audio and play it back?

Nice honest video is always good. Keep up the good work.

I hope you get this fixed eventually I think it would be interesting to see you get it working.

8:11 man, those belt wheels are absurdly yellowed

I fortunately read about the bad capacitors of the DCC900 before I bought one. Bought a DCC91 here in Germany instead, it's been part of a shelf hifi system. Installed new belts and it plays fine.

In one or more double sided pcb when traces corroded check for continuity between the levels of a suspected trace.Also try to resolder smd components because there are cases that cutted in an edge and this getting lifted by the soldering tip.And check not only the removable pcb but the mainboard also.The smd chips are prone to dry joins and is good to be resoldered.Every microswitch inside the mechanism of course has be checked for good continuity.

you did the best! Keep going to next project!

I'm a BIG fan of your vids

Retro format are good. Only time can stop us.=)

Hello! I have two if these decks I paid a fortune for and neither work. One plays analog tapes though. I intended to fix these are you interested? I think I even have the original box for one.

Awesome video. Glad everything failed for entertainment purposes. And hope you find a great deck soon.

I had one of those tape decks. Fabulous sound, rubbish remote!

Consumers didn't bite on DCC, they already knew what happens to any kind of tape over time or when you leave it in a hot car. CDs looked like they would hold up better so that's what music buyers decided to get. For pro use and for consumers who wanted a reel-to-reel replacement DAT was the format that had better adoption and most brands of gear also went with DAT. Shortly after that CD-R came along that could do both Audio and Data, game over for tape. VHS HiFi was analog but my favorite reel-to-reel replacement because of how many hours you could get on it and the "tone". Some of the JVC VHS HiFi units solved the head switching noise issue and really sounded fantastic. The only place I remember seeing DCC was at Radio Shack, they had a gift for picking every loser possible, maybe that's why there is no more Radio Shack.

Hi Colin and that's a great video which this particular amateur twiddler enjoyed. However, I now consider that my Philips DCC 730 ( which I have owned from new) will now just remain as my standby analogue cassette player - for as long as it remains working 😔🥴☹️.

I have that exact same one. I used to record Music Choice from my DSS back in the 90’s. LOL!

Sony MD killed this format. I still have mine years later and works perfectly. Great Video!

That's a shame. I imagine old tech of this sort is a gamble. The mechanical side probably has its own potential problems, but at the same time is probably easier to identify and fix problems. With the electronics, you just don't know what you're getting, as you demonstrated late in the video with a different auction listing. It's cool that people keep these things alive and restore them, but it looks to be a tricky thing that's going to be too much for many, especially since some problems will not be obvious. Thanks for showing this as it was interesting and good luck if you you go back to this.

Anyone else sitting here considering the fact that new PCBs could be made with the information in that service manual? The ICs on there didn't look like they would be too terrible to remove and with OSH Park getting some made wouldn't be too costly either. It could also potentially help the DCC community too. Either way, loved the video, even if it was not successful it was a solid watch. I hope you have some better luck getting them back up and running.

It's a bummer you couldn't play that Cathy Dennis DCC... I guess you could say that, when it came to getting this deck to work, there were just... Too Many Walls. 🕶

It's never a failed project if you learned a lot in the end.

This is what Techmoan has as nightmares

The left-right thing reminds me of my old ISA Yamaha sound card I bought for my first PC... The sound was actually pretty good, except one of the channels was very silent so I had to move the balance slider in the win 95 all the way to one side. After about 3 years of this setup I finally got annoyed (thought the card was damaged since the beginning) and bought a new sound card, the Creative AWE 64. When switching the cards, I noticed a strange jumpers setup on the old Yamaha (that I didn't ever notice before). And sure enough, after setting the jumpers properly the card worked totally fine, having a great balanced sound 😎. But as I already had the much better (and also much more expensive) AWE 64 I still decommissioned the Yamaha and didn't have any use of it since. What a shame 🙄

There is dozens of things you could try. Try soaking the PCBs in vinegar to dissolve the corrosion, then wash it with soaps, water, and IPA. When I do DIY PCBs I use kero, then strong ammonia cleaners, then water, then IPA. Watch CuriousMarc HP 98035 Clock Module Repair-A-Thon, there is a reoccurring corrosion section in it - he had to scrape and vinegar it several times -. Maybe align the head.

Sent it to Denmark and will try to fix it for you, I think I can do the job, the job on the pcb from dcc museum was pretty bad, sorry for saying it. And of course I will do it for free 😎

Both units are recoverable....but having patience is the keyword :)

Valiant effort to get these working again. I also bought a dysfunctional DCC deck ages ago (a Marantz unit, probably also first gen) but haven't bothered with it much because while trying to fix it I thought about it and the thing is that the format isn't very good when compared to DAT or MD or even recordable CDs (which came in roughly 1995 and pretty much put the final nail in the DCC coffin): basically you have all the limitations of the compact cassette (tape winding, blank space at the end of sides, difficult editing, etc) except now your highly compressed digital signal on the special and expensive new tapes is hiss-free! And also maybe you can edit them to have track titles (if your machine supports it and you have the remote and the time to wait as the machine shuffles through the whole tape to do it). Neat, I guess. I mean they're interesting from a technical point of view and they do a good job as playback decks for analog tapes (the head material can't be magnetized and they're pretty sensitive, tuned exclusively for playback pickup) but on the whole they weren't compelling unless you were both a luddite insisting on hanging onto your old tape library (yet not wanting to record to analog tapes because these can't do that) but also wanted to embrace the digital future.

Man, I have so much old tech laying around that needs to go away i whish we would live closer to each other so i could just give it to you, many many projects would await you...

Really hoping to see a subsequent video. But I can imagine your frustration as well. It’s a question of how far down a rabbit hole you want to go. Though luckily there is the DCC Museum and other helpful people. In any case I’d be interested to hear your views on the format.

Man, appreciate the effort and I feel honestly bad for you for sinking that much time anf money into this. I made the decision for myself to restrict my "vintage" av gear to tape, record and vhs players. The latter costed me also a bunch of money bc of a recap job, but since its a multi region board I wanted to keep it alive. But this is much as I am willing to go.

As cheesy as it may sound: it's all about the journey. You're very gifted and this video was a great watch. 👍

I've repaired 6 out of 7 Macintosh boards from the 80's and 90's with those evil early SMD electrolytic capacitors. You just can't save them all.

Dont give up, I have seen other smd caps go bad also and not just the electrolythics, the other ones get conductive or completly shorted. Also, the smd resistors that came in contact with capacitor acid do not have the same resistance anymore. Test everything again.

I certainly don't have any experience with DCC, but on the read/write board, it's true as you kept looking more at it, there seemed to be more corrosion. On at least one of the chips I did see a fair bit of corrosion at least on the surface of the solder joints. The only thing I can think to do is go over every millimeter of it with a microscope, vinegar, and see if you can find any damaged traces or solder connections. Short of that, maybe swapping out chips. But that would be expensive, not to mention very tricky, if you have to source another deck for the parts. I hope you have success. I know you have the ability, if you can figure it out.

Bevore your video i thaught my two dcc players are totally waste. i have a dcc still in my hifi deck and i have a panasonic dcc walkman. the deck goes after a few seconds in a permanent autoreversmode...over and over. i also have dcc cassettes. know i can sell them, or let it by me as an value for later. i bought my players at the end of the dcc time, new but not expensive. With this video i am a bit richer now! only while i saw your video over analog fotography. thats a benefit for others when they saw your videos. Thank you for this! I was a very lucky buyer in the past (allways new from store)...Exakta 66 Model3 i buy it for 1400DM, now 1400€! Rolleiflex SL 2000F 600DM, now 600€, Leica minilux 900DM, now 900€, Sony Walkman DD100,DD9, 400DM now more than 600€... changed more than from DM to € (1€=2,20DM) - inflation...but a very good investion! Today? Buy a Canon 1d mark2 for 300€ used, today or another early but superior DSLR...in twenty years? Speculation with benefit of use!

Good luck with getting a working deck. The one I got had good PCBs but the head and loading system were bad. (Due to the original seller’s less than stellar packing) anyway Ralf is taking care of it. And yes this is a thing you have to be really committed to putting money in if you especially if you buy a 1st Gen deck. Hopefully mine will be working in a few weeks.

I would LOVE to take a crack at this. I listened to your video while working and took a peak in now and again so it's likely I've missed some of your troubleshooting nuances, but from a skim over the service manual it doesn't appear as though you can safely say the whole problem comes from the Read/Write board. There could be issues with the Digital board too. Things I would want to see, since you have the analog part partially working starting with that, is if you put in a tape with a standard 1 kHz 0 dBu sine wave on left and right channels at the same level, what do the analog outputs look like on the oscilloscope at the output of the Read/Write board? If they are uneven there, then yes there is a problem with the Read/Write board. However consider the feedback circuitry as potentially being faulty on either channel as well - there could be too much feedback on the right channel or too little feedback on the left. If you have a consistent signal on the left and right channel you can continuously follow said signal from the input side of the board all the way to the output and try to find the point where the signals vary. I know I'm optimistically fresh at this but I hope you don't give up just yet! Next time you pick up the project go all in for a deep tracing session!

"Turns out the balance potentiometer was set all to the right. Works fine now." I kid. :) Interesting video.

I would double check all the capacitor values. There could’ve been a difference between the originals and the pack that came with the second unit. I’d also triple check the power supply voltages. It’s possible you have some caps that are bad inside the power supply, and even just a small variation could be causing something odd. It’s worth some measurement with the voltmeter.

11:46 - Definitely a big mood for when a project isn't going well there.

Great effort

It is sad that even buying something as new old stock means that it probably won’t work either. When we were growing up and even through my 20s and 30s I never thought that was a possibility. Now in my 40s I know better.

It's much more complicated inside than I expected. Sorry it didn't work out.

Just found one of these today at my local swap meet for $20 in cosmetically new condition, (Recognized it as the same from your video actually,) And sure enough it plays tapes, but the audio's quiet, and only out of one ear. Here's to hoping it has any life left 🤞

Never mind that it din't work the way you wanted...Still, at least you had an opportunity to gain lot's of experience and that may (and eventualy will) help you in future projects.

Ultrasonic cleaner for the retired hardware pcb is the best way to start with

Man, I feel your pain. I have a Technics RS-DC8, the second gen. deck and it also doesn't work. Bought it as a project as owner stated someone tried to demagnetize the head and ruined it by doing so ( dcc heads do not get demagnetized )! But by the time i have received it ( from Slovakia ) it got damaged more in transit and the new head i was going to buy got sold so never got a chance to repair it. It also intermittently refuse to respond to open/close button. As great this novelty is as much headache it gives you :(