That's odd, because the M7 I have in the shop has TWO built-in 4 inch speakers facing out the top of it. - factory installed.

I feel dumb I thought those were speakers. The seller told me they were extra speakers and I just thought, leave it to the Japanese to make them that small.

Still haven't playedor powered it yet besides the couple minutes in the sellers garage. I've taken the face plate off, lubed the idler wheels aand greased the mechanical linkages. Everything spins freely, the motor offers just a little drag when spining the metal fan on the back, but it seems fine. Haven't cleaned the heads yet but they don't look too bad. Need to pick up some IPA. I'm hoping, judging by the super clean condition that the heads still have some good life remaining. The directions in the manual for lubricating the motor has got me stumped. Apparently, to properly lube the motor you need to remove something called a motor board and a number of washers/bushings/retainer clips to get access to the "oiling pit". I'm not seeing these parts but perhaps I need to remove the idler wheels to get in there. Instructions say there are two oil pits, one on the back of the motor and one on the front that need to be filled with oil.

For motor lube all I have actually done so far is to carefully drip a few drops of oil against the shaft and and hand turned the motor to help it work itself down. For something that is suppose to be done every 600 hrs of operation they sure make it difficult to oil the motor. Or perhaps the manual isn't't exactly correct.

I plan on getting some efficient hi fi speakers to play it through. Specifications list it as 6 Watt max on eacch channel, total 12 W so it should fill the room. I 'll peruse the second hand shops for some tapes. The seller gave me two or three unopened tapes and a couple of pre recorded taps to get me started. I gather the "newer" high bias tapes are not recommended for this vintage player?

I worked on Akai recorders for an Authorized Service Station in San Francisco. I do not recall ever seeing an M-7 with 2 speakers. The M-8 had 2 top mounted speakers.

Tube Radio, - I may need to see if you have a replacement pinch roller. I re-assembled the player after cleaning the heads and lubricating the motor and everything else I could think of. I tried to play one of the old pre-recorded tapes and it seemed to play OK for abot 10 minutes although w/ scratchy pots. After some time the tape speed slowed down to almost a stop. I think the tape itself may be in such poor shape sticking together that it broke a number of times when I tried to fast forward the reel to find a better spot of tape.

I'm wondering if the pinch roller is not up to snuff. It shows a lot of small cracks and seems a bit hard and not real pliable. I have never had a Reel to Reel player before so I don't have much background information to draw on at this time. The belt, what I can see without actually taking the chassis out of the case seems nice and tight and in good condition.

Perhaps the magic rubber rejuvination system you lincked above is all I would need to solve the problem. At this point I'm still deep in the learning curve on this problem. The motor seems to run fine and there is no excessive noise as it runs.

I thought I may get away with only a cleaning and lube on this unit but sounds like this vintage may be a candidate for new caps and resistor chacks. From what I could see peering through the openings of the cabinet it's very tight in there. Looks like a long term project for the way I work. Heck, I don't even see an easy quick way to get the guts out of the chassis. Even pulling the plugs is a little tight.

Got to battle the snow and try to get to work, more later.
Thanks.

This topic makes me want to get out one of mine, and build a mono amp for my Fisher tuner. I kept both of my Akai amps, and tossed the mechanics a while ago. One of these could make a nice amplifier for my 1950's speaker, and connected to the Fisher 80-T tuner/pre-amp as a source, it would be perfect!