Studer a807 won't play

Hi everyone,

I am new to the forum and the world of reel to reel recorders (although I have always wanted to buy one before but could not afford one) and I need your help.

I just purchased a Studer a807 that I was assured it was aligned and fully tested. This is my problem: with the tape loaded and not slacking, I cannot get neither reel to move. All that happens is: I turn it on, the stop button flashes for a few seconds, and then its LED turns off. From that point onwards, no matter which transport button I press, all I get is the tape moving forward just 1 inch or so. The only exception is when I'm on Tape Dump mode, where the tape moves normally and I can even rewind a bit to spool it back into the right reel.

Am I missing something really basic here? The manual doesn't seem to help much at this point.

Any help will be appreciated. Thanks!

Hi Bruce, thanks so much for replying... I'm a total newbie with R2R, so bear with me. I believe the tension of the tape is fine. I can manually rotate the take-up reel anti-clockwise and get the tape to move through the transport. if I do the same from the other reel, the same thing happens. So I believe the tape is not slack. Is that what you meant? Thanks again!