Tip Shop Find: Mysterious Faith SR-1000 Cassette Deck

A few weeks ago I went to our local Tip shop. This is a small shop run by our local council at our waste transfer station. They have donated junk and items they retrieve from waste waiting to be sold to new victims. I was surprised when I went up the back and there sitting on a bench, was an old cassette deck. It was looking worse for wear with rust on the top and a coating of filth all over it. It looked up at me and begged me to take it home.

I don’t need a cassette deck. I don’t even listen to cassettes, and I’m trying to downsize, but I still asked the attendant how much it was and he said $5.00. In Australia that’s about the price of a cup of coffee. In the USA that’s roughly the same as the tax some billionaires pays in a year. Next thing I know I’m on the way back to the car with it under my arm.

The brand is FAITH and the model is SR-1000 (or SR/1000) and it was made in Japan. I don’t know anything more than that. I didn’t expect it to work. Just about everything I own that has rubber belts in it from that era has stopped working due to the belts. Often they have turned to a sticky goo that is harder to remove than, well, sticky goo. What I didn’t expect was to find absolutely zero information about it.

Let’s take a look at it

Before

Here it is sitting on a bench at the tip shop. It looks a fairly average quality affair, but I like the aesthetics. And that’s a real aluminium front panel, so full marks for that.

The top was very dirty and it looks like acid had been spilled on it.

The acid had run down the back.

Here is another shot of the front. That’s quite a nicotine patina it has, like a 80’s pub wall. Are you supposed to leave that on when you restore HiFi components? The odour was quite powerful and I decided to give it a clean with a small amount of soap and water. That eject button doesn’t look quite right, but I think it was just sitting up high at the time for some reason, perhaps just trying to get my attention.

After

I have not done much restoration, mainly just cleaning. Here it is playing. I did like the goldiness of the patina but I don’t miss the smell.

Another shot, possibly in better light.

I sanded the top and removed the rust. I gave the cover a coat of paint using Dulux flat black spray paint. This seems to be one of the better spray paints I have used.

This is the text on the back. Strangely, the serial number is not visible. Perhaps it came off with cleaning.

The whole of the back. Not much there of interest other than it has a Din connector as well as RCA connectors.

A peek inside

It wouldn’t be right if I didn’t show you inside. I didn’t remove or lift up the PCB as there was a spring that I thought I may have difficulty reinstalling.

There is some text on the PCB. Is that Isozaki? I couldn’t find anything searching for that.

This is the mechanism side. Just a small transformer and the cassette mechanism.

This is the mechanism from the back. My phone camera actually worked fairly well here. I replaced the belt, even though the old one seemed ok. Perhaps someone had previously replaced it.

I tried to get my phone under the board for a few photos. The big white things are the back of the front panel meters.

Lots of ’70s – ’80s looking parts. I was surprised to see those square cans. I’ve always associated those with radio.

A final inside shot.

Does it work

When I started it up, it worked, but did have some issues. The middle round Tape Selection button had very bad contacts, so I sprayed contact cleaner in all switches and that fixed it. The PB level is a bit scratchy, but I don’t have any potentiometer cleaner, so that will have to wait.

The sound is ok, but a bit quiet. I only have 40 year old cassettes. I thought they may be a part of the problem, but they don’t have that issue in another player. It may also be sounding slightly muffled. I did give the heads and pinch roller a good clean, but I’m not inclined to replace capacitors or fiddle with it too much.

History

I’ve done a lot of searching and have found little information about this model or the company. It is marked made in Japan, but many hifi components of the time were, so that doesn’t narrow it down much. It looks like it may have been made around the ’80s.

Searching for information about it got a result on eBay for a cassette deck that was the identical model. Unfortunately there was just a short description with nothing I didn’t know. The images looked very similar to the one I have. I then noticed it was for sale in my area. I checked the serial number and found it was exactly the same one. The sale had ended without a buyer, and it looked like the deck’s next stop was the tip shop.

I found a Japanese company called Faith Co Ltd. According to their info page, the company started in 1984 as Satto Denki Co., Ltd and changed their name to Faith Co., Ltd. in 1996. I doubt the cassette deck is as young as 1996, although perhaps the company was using the Faith name on products before that.

In the image results I did find this photo of a top loading FATH SX-101D from a sale that has since completed. This is clearly a different model and while the translated description is very interesting, it does not help with my quest.

On Youtube there is a short video of a Faith FA-707 amplifier. A commenter said they thought this amplifier was sold in Europe under the name Jesko. I searched Jesko cassette decks and didn’t find anything.

Do you know?

So I’m at a loss about its history. Do you know anything about it or the company?