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The recommended way of cleaning fixed heads, no matter if on a tape deck or on a floppy drive, is to just use a Q-tip with rubbing alcohol.
Helical-scan head drums like on any VCRs or any camcorders that used tape to record to, or on DAT decks and some data tape drives which used helical-scan formats like DAT/DDS or Data8/AIT, for example, are more delicate and have different recommendations for manual cleaning.
Do you have a favorite procedure for doing so? I got this old boombox (the kind you'd carry on your shoulder) but playing tapes on it sucks.
I want to try cleaning it, and was going to look into the head cleaner tapes.
From what I've seen from other YTers, a Q-tip and rubbing alcohol on the heads seems fine, TDNC and most retro computing creators do that with floppy drives frequently to good success and the same idea applies to tape deck heads.
The heads pick up dirt and over time the tapes shed on the play and record heads. It's a dark brown mass that builds up. The thicker it is, the more it interferes with record/playback. Playback will sound muffled with a loss in the high end. Also, the buildup promotes the tapes shedding more doing damage over time. It usually comes off easy with a few light wipes with an alcohol dipped q-tip.
The only "trick" I've heard is you are supposed to only wipe off the tape head the way the tape runs across it. The idea being you don't want to scratch the head which would then damage the tape. I don't know if this was just folklore, but it seems logical.
I used to have a reel to reel Tascam 8 track that ran 1/2 tape in my studio. I was always careful to wipe only in the direction of the tape and I'd clean before each studio session. I never saw any build up on those heads.