Looking for information on an arken cr-101

[Imallears]

Recently i ended up getting a reel to reel tape player, as my partner got his hands on a pile of old tapes, and we got lucky to find an arken tape player local to us for sale.
It does work, but it plays everything a little sped up; one of the tapes we tested was a 1970s radio recording and it was a bit... chimpmunked sounding for lack of a better term.
I can't find much aside 3 sale listings online for it, so any information would be grand.
I can tell you it uses vaccum tubes and is pretty simple, with no obvious speed control. Just reverse, stop, play and record.

 

[DVDdoug]

Standard tape speeds were 7-1/2 Inches per second, 3-1/4 IPS, and 1-7/8 IPS. And there were pro machines that ran at 15 IPS or sometimes 30 IPS (all factors of two).

If the speed is off by a different amount, it's usually a slipping belt or drive wheel which would make the speed slow and varied, so I don't think that's the problem.

Many tape machines (and record players) had synchronous motors that depend on power line frequency but the line voltage is also different in Europe so it's not likely the difference between a U.S. and European model.

If you digitize the tapes you can change the digital file speed with Audacity. Oh... Audacity can also record (digitize) the tapes. But the tape player should have line outputs or a headphone output and you need a computer with a regular soundcard and line-in, or a USB audio interface with line-in. (The mic input on a laptop is "wrong".)