In 2006 I got a Teac A3440 but track 4 was bad (horrible screeching noise playing back the tapes that came with it and it wouldn't record on track 4). I bought some close-out 10 inch reel tapes from Musicians Friend back then (2006) to use when I got the recorder repaired. Fast forward 15 years and I finally got the Teac A3440 repaired. Can I still use the unopened 15 year old tapes with this recorder or do they degrade over time and wouldn't be worth the effort? Eric I'm trying to post links to a photo hosting site but they aren't showing. Maybe you can extract the addresses between the [img] tags. [url=https://postimg.cc/8JLZvKN0][img]https://i.postimg.cc/C1QXWXtS/IMG-1286.jpg[/img][/url] [url=https://postimg.cc/FfMP755S][img]https://i.postimg.cc/zBB428xx/IMG-1287.jpg[/img][/url] [url=https://postimg.cc/p5xqJfdX][img]https://i.postimg.cc/brSW8Lcb/IMG-1288.jpg[/img][/url]

Hi Eric - Tapes do degrade over time, and 15 years is pretty old. A lot depends on how they were stored (temperature, humidity, etc) -- it'd be a shame to gunk up the heads/guides of a newly-working recorder if the tapes start to flake or ooze. There are a number of companies that work with older tapes, using special techniques to get deteriorated tapes to play [a search for "tape restoration" should turn up a few]-- it might be worth a call in to get some feedback from those who specialize in those particular issues with old tapes.. Sorry, the site doesn't allow for user posting of photos -- it's part of the aggressive anti-spam filtering used.