Cassette Tape Stuck in Stereo

[hudsthinking1999]

Oh, boy. 6 days have passed since I bought a slew of cassettes, and just now something went wrong.

So, today I found out that my La Bamba soundtrack tape still works (even though there's two broken "teeth"). I went to see what it sounded like in my bros' radio/cassette/CD player combo from AudioLogic.

And then it got stuck.






Crap.

Some people around the "World Wide Web" are saying you can use butter knives and tweezers to pry it open, but I wouldn't want to damage the thing. And still, those tutorials are for car cassette players, not regular stereo cassette players.

Any suggestions would be great.

P.S. That La Bamba tape was my favourite one. The Heart album is second. "If Looks Could Kill" is a classic.

[Bob Dobbs]

Most audio cassette car players drop the tape down once inserted. Using a strong butter knife to pry it upwards while hitting eject is the first option.

LINK BELOW:
Skip the first 50 seconds, from there it explains a progressive step by step on how to remove the cassette.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nF2YMu8QBs

[hudsthinking1999]

Most audio cassette car players drop the tape down once inserted. Using a strong butter knife to pry it upwards while hitting eject is the first option.

LINK BELOW:
Skip the first 50 seconds, from there it explains a progressive step by step on how to remove the cassette.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nF2YMu8QBs

Thanks for helping. I did find out that just pulling on the thing makes it open all the way.

But one thing I'm still not sure about: is the tape getting caught on something when I put it in the stereo? I also found out that this is happening to all of my cassettes.

On a side note, it is pretty dusty in there.

[Bob Dobbs]

I believe it is the tape deck, not your cassettes. Some decks stop ejecting cassettes out properly.

[hudsthinking1999]

Huh. Thanks!

[Aleron Ives]

If the tape is important to you, are you sure that the playback mechanism is disengaging properly? If you try to pull the tape out while it's still spooled through the pinch rollers and playback head, you'll ruin it. If you're having lots of tapes get stuck, you should stop using that deck immediately. It's only a matter of time before it eats a tape that you care about.

[hudsthinking1999]

If the tape is important to you, are you sure that the playback mechanism is disengaging properly? If you try to pull the tape out while it's still spooled through the pinch rollers and playback head, you'll ruin it. If you're having lots of tapes get stuck, you should stop using that deck immediately. It's only a matter of time before it eats a tape that you care about.

Yeah, I only use my Walkman for tapes now.

Oh yeah, it's Sonic's 24th birthday today. Now, that should be DC-Talk news right there!