Testing the water on this reel to reel. Its an Akai GX-1820D reel to reel with built in 8-track player in the side also comes with 4 tapes and take-up spool. Mechanically this works perfectly, records fine, but there is an intermittent fault which we think is on the pre-amp board as the sound cuts out every few seconds and then comes back on again. The VU meters still kick etc. so its simply somewhere on the output that this is happening. Offers?