I bought one just like the one in your video from a 2nd hand store when I was 13, in 1982 for $5. The knobs on mine were a little different but other than that it was pretty much the same model. I played with it for a while and tore it apart after I got tired of it. The song on your tape was Al and Yetta by Alan Sherman from his album, "My Son The Celebrity."
@@garymckee8857 No. This is the later version which didn'tmake in the series. It went something like "Good morening Mr. Phelps......yadda yadda yadda......Should you refuse to take on the mission, what happens to the tape at the end of playback, will happen to your IM Force and your life. Good luck, Jim".
If you or any of your IM force is caught or killed, the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your existence in the movie "Airplane". Beware of the Fish and the Copilot. No, not Abdul. The "inflatable one". Don't talk to the little boy. This Plane will self destruct in 5 seconds. Good Luck, Jim.
That one is made by AIWA, it's called a rim-drive recorder. AIWA made a zillion of them from the early 60's until about '69 and sold them under hundreds of different unknown brand names. They were kids toys sold at Woolworths and drug stores and the like.
Those Sunbeam C batteries are probably just AA batteries in a larger casing. The really cheap dollar store batteries often do that to cut production costs.
It would be interesting to see what the "ceiling" is on rim drive using all of the best available modern components....including a speed control system that slowed down the takeup reel as it filled, to maintain a constant tape speed.
The only way to make this video better, would be to combine this and your nemesis, the Magnavox Micromatic. You'd have us rolling in the aisles! Great content/entertainment value sir.
Four transistors are enough. One high gain stage that is used as both a microphone preamp, and a tape head preamp , plus the usual three transistor class B output stage, which also drives the tape head on record. No AC bias oscillator is used, either a fixed DC current is passed through the tape head on record, or a PM magnet is used (which also erases the tape). Cheap, Lowfi, but it works.
Immediately after watching this video I did some investigating and found a 4 transistor reel to reel tape recorder that was very similar to this one. the controls were all the same, speaker placement same, etc. it was named Apolec. same incredible quality too. the motor was so weak it couldn't even turn the tape reel with the tape on it. it had to be taken off the player and then it would work Yup, same incredible quality as your Electra
Sounds like u still need to work on that speed control unit to make it play steady. Otherwise,,it,s a very interesting machine well made with the fast forward/rewind system,and the batteries facing each other,and the 9 volt battery connection too.
Wonder if the speed control pot is open or needs to be cleaned or perhaps there is another component bad. The distortion you are hearing could also indicate the tape is going at the wrong speed or perhaps there is a belt that is slipping or the speed control pot is bad
These were available in many versions. In the UK a company called Headquarters and General Supplies sold them for just under 5 pounds. Mass advertising with full page newspapers. Needless to say, as a kid I just had to have one. On opening the box a great electronics smell came out, ummm love that smell. Mine had the same crystal mic but a elliptical speaker. My Dad recorded some of my favourite songs on his (proper) tape recorder. As it started to play, I must admit, the sound was OK but as the tape advanced the speed increased, making recordings on a proper tape recorder useless. No capstan! Speed consistency was the greatest issue, every time you played it the speed would be different. Mine did not have a speed control. The speed was 100% dependent on battery voltage, those C cells did not last long. Keeping the rubber clean was also a major factor in speed stability. After only a few weeks the motor in my unit failed. That was the end of that. The bias was just DC!!
I was thinking that one of those transistors might be a bias oscillator, but after hearing it, DC bias is probably more than good enough. Too bad it doesn't sound as cool as it looks.
That tape was probably almost as old as the recorder itself, and hell knows how many times it was recorded, earased and recorded again, so you can't expect good quality sound out of it anyway. Not to mention the dirty tape head.
To me it looks like the tape is backwards. Shouldn't the shiny side of the tape be touching the head? Maybe I'm wrong but to me t sure don't look right.
I've never seen a reel to reel set up like this. Usually you have to hold record down while you engage play so when you stop the machine the record automatically resets itself so there's no possibly of accidentally recording/erasing the next time you use the machine.
These were basically a kids toy and were not meant for music recording. This is the kind of thing parents would get their boy for Christmas and he would hide it in his older sisters room to record her and her friends until he gets caught and older sister decides to "DISABLE" it. It simplicity at its best and still going after 55 years. I bet you wont be able to say that about anything purchased today in 55 years.
These things used DC bias instead ultrasonic ac bias. Enough DC bias to lift the audio halfway up the B-H curve in the north or south direction. AC bias lifts the audio to the middle of the B-H curve in northerly and southerly directions and you get twice as much output from the tape. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_hysteresis Supposedly AC bias was accidentally discovered by an engineer at AEG Telefunken who was working on a recording amplifier. He disconnected a decoupling capacitor in the amp, and it began ultrasonic oscillation, and the the playback quality improved tremendously.
And to complete the set, Dolby HX Pro made the bias dynamic by side-chaining the bias level to the amount of high-frequency in the audio signal, letting the high frequencies cause a certain amount of self-biasing. Mostly done on cassettes, it offered a bunch more headroom on recording.
@@Stoney3K Yes program audio and bias does tend to be self erasing; more so at higher frequencies and lower tape speeds. At speeds of 15 & 30 inches per second full output at 0 VU can be obtained across the audio spectrum. When you drop to 7-1/2 & 3-3/4, frequency response is checked at 10 db below standard. For cassette (1-7/8), frequency response is taken at 20 db below standard. In an effort to overcome these effects, Akai came up with the "cross-field" head. It was a bias head facing the backside of the tape, without any bias applied to the recording head. They claimed it delivered 22 kc frequency response @ 7-1/2 ips.
I bought on of these back in '64. Total crap by today's standards, but my friends and I had a ball with it! I even recorded the Beatles first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show off our Zenith roundie color tv!
With a rim drive recorder there is no universal speed regulation, as one reel empties and the other one fills the speed changes with the ratio. That's why capstan drive recorders cost more and why you can't play tapes made on a capstan drive recorder on one of these at the right speed.
I had a Realtone brand 3" RTR portable similar to that one, maybe slightly more deluxe, ever so slightly!😁 I have a Realtone now, like new, identical to the one I had as a kid in the late 1960s. As a kid, only ever had the one reel of tape, recording over and over on it...you can imagine the sound quality!😃 Back then it was the "cats meow" to me! I used to fill the tape with my favorite rock songs from my trusty GE AM transistor radio (which I still have, got radio new from Kmart in 1968), and I would play the tape with my songs on it, while we were out playing in the dirt with trucks, or playing tag, whatever!😊 The speed control was to help as the batteries were getting weaker, to compensate. Fun times!😊
Love it. My first ever electronic purchase when I was a kid, from Woolworth’s. Also love the smell of Japanese electronic gear when it was new just out of the packing.
One of my most prized possessions was a portable tape recorder very similar to that one. It was a Christmas treasure from around 1963 or so. I kept it until my teens and wore it out!
Its great to see a reel to a reel to reel recorder a second chance of life, recording modern things on to the tape while preserving the original recoring on it. Lastly, I love the end of the video where you aligned the cigarette commercial (looks to be from the 60's or 70's) and how it ended so perfect!
I would guess those were targeted at dictation and wouldn't need to be music-level good. Also, the rubber rings driving the motor look tiny and perished; wow and flutter would most likely be restored to a dictation-level of acceptability if you put a couple of new, thick buna rubber grommets on it.
I had to have mine ,I did testing one two three,and that's was all I ever did with it then I got from someone a majic eye tube bigger tape recorder ,that one speed control was off ,got rid of that one two ,then I bought a Sony 255 and Used to copy my albums on to it for long play music ,then my Sony 255 died and I got my money back,the end.
Yes. The C cells are in parallel. 1.5 volts (double mAh capacity) for the motor drive , 9V for the electronics. All mechanical actuation is manual, through the knobs. Those batteries must have been installed recently as that battery compartment would have been a mess. That has to be from the mid/late 1960's.
My father (whom passed in '95) was in the Navy and instead of writing letters while at sea, he would record his letter to Mom on Kodak tapes. One of his recordings mentioned he used a Star-Brite portable unit which looks just like this one. I've played some of the tapes on that player & his voice "almost" sounds like I remember. Very simple units especially on a government wage!
Remember that since there is no pinch roller/capstan, and the tape is driven by the edge of the reel, the tape speed is gradually and constantly changing as the reel fills with tape. So these tapes are hard to play back on modern gear that uses a constant speed drive.
You got to love how janky it is. I miss made in Japan, they were the best by the end. You look at the history & they progressed really quickly & the inventiveness of the engineers working with praticly no resorses is just amazing.
Had a rim drive reel to reel almost identical Lloyds brand no speed adjust same magnet erase when I was a wee lad. I remember recording Summer in the city from my AM pocket radio same lapel microphone. I think it cost around $10.00 from Walgreens... Mr. Phelps missed this one....
That recorder looks like it is hub driven instead of capstan driven. The tape speed changes as the tape fills up the take up reel instead of a constant inches per second.
Good lord... I had friends that had these, were no end of issues with them. I waited until the Craig Panorama came out. Now that was a decent "real tape recorder" I believe it actually had a line in and a speed changing capstan via removing the 3 3/4 you would have 1 7/8 In thought I was king of the hill with that Craig model 212 It was fairly "HiFi" Thanks shango066, what a blast to trip down this avenue.
I saw a similar recorder in a store for about $10.00 in the early 1960s. I listened to music on "top 40" AM radio stations. We, as teenagers, were stuck with waiting for the DJs to play our favorite songs. We could buy 45 rpm records with one favorite song on each, but, at about $1.00 each in 1960s money, they were expensive and, after we'd heard the song a few times, we'd grow tired of it. I was a knob twiddler and would scan the AM radio dial for my favorite sons at night, when distant radio stations could be received. However, I might only catch the tail part of each song. We relished the idea of being able to record complete songs off the radio and play them back at will. My Dad recognized that buying one of these machines would just be throwing away money. For Christmas, he bought the family a stereo reel to reel recorder, (with capstan drive, AC erase head and AC bias, and handling 7 inch reels of tape) but I was the one that got the most use out of it. I still have most of my tapes, which I played back into a computer and converted to mp3 format. At the time, I just recorded the songs and not the DJ. Now that most of the songs are available on youtube, I don't need the song recordings. I am sorry that I don't have vintage recordings of the DJs!
Funny thing is tape is possibly the highest quality recording, we’re talking about 15 inches per second master tapes not consumer grade tape. This pile of junk probably has the worst recording quality. It’s interesting to see the difference between junk made back then and today. We all think everything made back in the day was great quality, this is because only the high quality stuff is still around today. Unfortunately today there isn’t any high quality stuff made.
From my experience, I would say that this one comes in at around 1965 or so. Earlier ones were a bit bigger, later ones were a bit better in the playback. In 67 I got my first one with a capstan that would do music.
Those were the cheapest tape recorders available in the 1960s. Rim drive Crystal microphone permanent magnet for the erase head. They don't get very loudand do not perform well even though they will make audio. More or less only good for voice. I had a few of these when I was a kid and was never impressed by them. You used to be able to pick them up all you wanted at yard sales and garage sales for a buck apiece
I think the song at the beginning there really rocks UA-cam content I can't bust because they can't figure out what song it is but it's actually a French song but that song really Rocks you should play slow motion it probably even sounds better loool
Since you are in CA, I'm thinking this was $9.95 at White Front in 1963. 😂 Prolly cost a buck to make. Interesting that rim drive was actually a thing, peer the other comments. Yes performance was disgusting, but this still made for a great video to see a well preserved example. No battery corrosion. Wow. Virginia Slims! Epic ending. Still laughing!!! 🙄😜🙃😆😆🤩
Never seen a magnet used instead of an erase head. Priceless! I bet it degrades the recording with every playback as it is still so near the tape. Looks cool though.
well I can tell you how you lined that up you have good timing and you are very good at editing so wwith that you can do it all fix tv's and stereos and consoles and components and radios and amps and anything you want to fix you can and do a great job all the best happy and healthy holidays and merry christmas
I love these old Japanesium miniature items. Was that Danny Kaye? Sounded like "Hal" before the speed was changed. Daisy Daisy. . Give me your answer do..
Date codes were not as prominent on early Japanese stuff; but, I figure this is from the mid-to-late '60's. By the early '70's, cassettes had pretty much taken the place of these small R2R recorders.
I have a slightly different version which I found at my grandmother's house after she died. Apparently was my uncles when he was a kid around 1965, knowing my grandmother it was probably from Woolworth where she worked. Tried it once and it sounded... About as good as this one. I guess they were mainly meant for kids to play with... But as you saw you can have some fun with something as cheap as this! Mine just used C batteries, and no 9v. I'll have to look for it and see how it compares otherwise.
I actually have a clone of this in my basement which I had as a child..I’m guessing 1962 or so...mine uses only one D battery and a 9 V battery too .. and lacks the speed control.
@@gregorymalchuk272 Yessir. A funny song writer from the mid-60s I think. That's when I'm from, so most likely. "Hello Mudder Hell Fodder" "On Top of Spaghetti" and the like! The good old days.
aren't those 8mm film reels - when i was a kid they were interchangeable, the ones for tape were transparent. i also remember the early units had both 9V (for the electronics) and 2 C cells for the motors.
Yes, searched the comments to see who picked up on this. In the 60s developed 8mm was sometimes returned on reels with one side solid, with an enveloping plastic "cap" over the other end, sort of like what pipe tape sometimes comes in. The ones for tape reels were open on both sides. They were interchangeable.
Old capacitors reading double what they should is typical of component failure. They go like this but their voltage handling will be greatly reduced. I'm not an expert in chemistry so I can't tell you why! richard (UK)
Those do seem to be super 8 film reels... on a DC bias rim drive! LOL! Should take any kind of consumer 1/4" tape. I wonder what would happen with professional 1/4" 456 tape but the felt pad and tape backing might not like each-other.
I bought one just like the one in your video from a 2nd hand store when I was 13, in 1982 for $5. The knobs on mine were a little different but other than that it was pretty much the same model. I played with it for a while and tore it apart after I got tired of it. The song on your tape was Al and Yetta by Alan Sherman from his album, "My Son The Celebrity."
Customer complaint: tape fails to self destruct at end of play
Good morning Mr Phelps,the mission should you choose to accept it.
Instead it appears the player itself attempts to self destruct every time you use it.
Haha. Pretty sure tape recording of a famed 1950s-60s performance comedian, Allan Sherman. Sold ton of vinyl records-died young.
@@garymckee8857 No. This is the later version which didn'tmake in the series. It went something like "Good morening Mr. Phelps......yadda yadda yadda......Should you refuse to take on the mission, what happens to the tape at the end of playback, will happen to your IM Force and your life. Good luck, Jim".
If you or any of your IM force is caught or killed, the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your existence in the movie "Airplane". Beware of the Fish and the Copilot. No, not Abdul. The "inflatable one". Don't talk to the little boy. This Plane will self destruct in 5 seconds. Good Luck, Jim.
Thumps up. Absolute beauty to see this vintage techs. Get going shangoo. All the support...
That one is made by AIWA, it's called a rim-drive recorder. AIWA made a zillion of them from the early 60's until about '69 and sold them under hundreds of different unknown brand names. They were kids toys sold at Woolworths and drug stores and the like.
Those Sunbeam C batteries are probably just AA batteries in a larger casing. The really cheap dollar store batteries often do that to cut production costs.
It would be interesting to see what the "ceiling" is on rim drive using all of the best available modern components....including a speed control system that slowed down the takeup reel as it filled, to maintain a constant tape speed.
The only way to make this video better, would be to combine this and your nemesis, the Magnavox Micromatic. You'd have us rolling in the aisles! Great content/entertainment value sir.
Four transistors are enough. One high gain stage that is used as both a microphone preamp, and a tape head preamp , plus the usual three transistor class B output stage, which also drives the tape head on record. No AC bias oscillator is used, either a fixed DC current is passed through the tape head on record, or a PM magnet is used (which also erases the tape). Cheap, Lowfi, but it works.
Immediately after watching this video I did some investigating and found a 4 transistor reel to reel tape recorder that was very similar to this one. the controls were all the same, speaker placement same, etc. it was named Apolec. same incredible quality too. the motor was so weak it couldn't even turn the tape reel with the tape on it. it had to be taken off the player and then it would work Yup, same incredible quality as your Electra
Sounds like u still need to work on that speed control unit to make it play steady. Otherwise,,it,s a very interesting machine well made with the fast forward/rewind system,and the batteries facing each other,and the 9 volt battery connection too.
Wonder if the speed control pot is open or needs to be cleaned or perhaps there is another component bad. The distortion you are hearing could also indicate the tape is going at the wrong speed or perhaps there is a belt that is slipping or the speed control pot is bad
These were available in many versions. In the UK a company called Headquarters and General Supplies sold them for just under 5 pounds. Mass advertising with full page newspapers. Needless to say, as a kid I just had to have one. On opening the box a great electronics smell came out, ummm love that smell. Mine had the same crystal mic but a elliptical speaker.
My Dad recorded some of my favourite songs on his (proper) tape recorder. As it started to play, I must admit, the sound was OK but as the tape advanced the speed increased, making recordings on a proper tape recorder useless. No capstan! Speed consistency was the greatest issue, every time you played it the speed would be different. Mine did not have a speed control. The speed was 100% dependent on battery voltage, those C cells did not last long. Keeping the rubber clean was also a major factor in speed stability.
After only a few weeks the motor in my unit failed. That was the end of that. The bias was just DC!!
I was thinking that one of those transistors might be a bias oscillator, but after hearing it, DC bias is probably more than good enough. Too bad it doesn't sound as cool as it looks.
You're being very sarcastic about something that was not very expensive. Its clever that it worked with so few parts.
I'd give ya a buck and a quarter for it.Hahaha, nice for the space age and that warp drive is fantastic for the drive coupler.📻📺👍.
mid 60's Sears sold them they were like 25 bucks, also, later they were marked under the Juliet brand, im sure under a few others
LMFAO! Agreed that it was probably used once and returned to it's box. Truly awful in every way except condition. Amusing and very entertaining video.
I had the exact same model... I think it was around 1966 or 67
Caps off tv I burnt, couldn't stop laughing
Nice, Galaxy active, got that for my old man
Vintage at it's best.
That tape was probably almost as old as the recorder itself, and hell knows how many times it was recorded, earased and recorded again, so you can't expect good quality sound out of it anyway. Not to mention the dirty tape head.
Features both Wow and Flutter.
It needs "Plus - Minus" 1,5V power.
To me it looks like the tape is backwards. Shouldn't the shiny side of the tape be touching the head? Maybe I'm wrong but to me t sure don't look right.
Ms Roper Yes the dull side was the oxide side that made contact with the heads.
How much for the tape with your voice gotta be worth something 🤔
That is the comedian Allen Sherman, from the 1960s. My mom and dad had his records.
Ricky from IBM
love the erase head how many tapes have got erased when you rewind and forgot to take it out of record mode
force311999
Believe it or not, there is an electrical interlock. When in the record position, it won’t rewind.
I've never seen a reel to reel set up like this. Usually you have to hold record down while you engage play so when you stop the machine the record automatically resets itself so there's no possibly of accidentally recording/erasing the next time you use the machine.
@@w7777777s Makes sense they'd have some kind of protection.
These were basically a kids toy and were not meant for music recording.
This is the kind of thing parents would get their boy for Christmas and he would hide it in his older sisters room to record her and her friends until he gets caught and older sister decides to "DISABLE" it.
It simplicity at its best and still going after 55 years. I bet you wont be able to say that about anything purchased today in 55 years.
Wow..! super clean interior..
Not what I've come to expect here..
These things used DC bias instead ultrasonic ac bias. Enough DC bias to lift the audio halfway up the B-H curve in the north or south direction. AC bias lifts the audio to the middle of the B-H curve in northerly and southerly directions and you get twice as much output from the tape.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_hysteresis
Supposedly AC bias was accidentally discovered by an engineer at AEG Telefunken who was working on a recording amplifier. He disconnected a decoupling capacitor in the amp, and it began ultrasonic oscillation, and the the playback quality improved tremendously.
And to complete the set, Dolby HX Pro made the bias dynamic by side-chaining the bias level to the amount of high-frequency in the audio signal, letting the high frequencies cause a certain amount of self-biasing. Mostly done on cassettes, it offered a bunch more headroom on recording.
@@Stoney3K Yes program audio and bias does tend to be self erasing; more so at higher frequencies and lower tape speeds. At speeds of 15 & 30 inches per second full output at 0 VU can be obtained across the audio spectrum. When you drop to 7-1/2 & 3-3/4, frequency response is checked at 10 db below standard. For cassette (1-7/8), frequency response is taken at 20 db below standard. In an effort to overcome these effects, Akai came up with the "cross-field" head. It was a bias head facing the backside of the tape, without any bias applied to the recording head. They claimed it delivered 22 kc frequency response @ 7-1/2 ips.
It sounds like an ice cream truck patrolling the neighborhood.
Lol
Ah ha ha ha, it totally does not, but that is excellent nonetheless!
Allan Sherman!
Content identification complete, deploying jackbooted censorbots...
Al & Yetta's Television Set.
Yes! Allan Sherman. I recognized him right off. Nobody remembers him any more. You must be old too.
@@davek12 Al 'N Yetta from My Son, The Celebrity, 1963. Great rendition here: ua-cam.com/video/yYmNeGEB-fw/v-deo.html
@@KameraShy an appropriate song for Shango!!
@@KameraShy yes, I thought it was Allen Sherman! I am old enough to remember too!😂
Mr. Lange was very proud of his tape recorder, and looked after it well.
"Handle with care"
He was afraid it might stop working. LOL.
I bought on of these back in '64. Total crap by today's standards, but my friends and I had a ball with it! I even recorded the Beatles first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show off our Zenith roundie color tv!
With a rim drive recorder there is no universal speed regulation, as one reel empties and the other one fills the speed changes with the ratio. That's why capstan drive recorders cost more and why you can't play tapes made on a capstan drive recorder on one of these at the right speed.
I have my dad's, I would love to play his tapes
I made an audio recording of the first man landing on the Moon in 1969 with one of these and still have it.
Moon landing? Ya don’t say.
Wow. What a world. That moon landing was a blast. I watched it at my school in NZ.
You should post the audio to UA-cam!
I had a Realtone brand 3" RTR portable similar to that one, maybe slightly more deluxe, ever so slightly!😁 I have a Realtone now, like new, identical to the one I had as a kid in the late 1960s. As a kid, only ever had the one reel of tape, recording over and over on it...you can imagine the sound quality!😃 Back then it was the "cats meow" to me! I used to fill the tape with my favorite rock songs from my trusty GE AM transistor radio (which I still have, got radio new from Kmart in 1968), and I would play the tape with my songs on it, while we were out playing in the dirt with trucks, or playing tag, whatever!😊 The speed control was to help as the batteries were getting weaker, to compensate. Fun times!😊
Love it. My first ever electronic purchase when I was a kid, from Woolworth’s. Also love the smell of Japanese electronic gear when it was new just out of the packing.
I remember buying guns from the Kmart gun counter here in OZ NT as a kid . . walking home with an cardboard box encased rifle over my shoulder .
Sears Transtalk walkie talkies in styrofoam and cardboard outer jacketing. I remember the smell too.
I had the Sears transtalk 600 ones.1967.that little electra is from 68 or close.
@@benwinter2420 that was before the gun culture ruined it by making guns toys everyone can have
One of my most prized possessions was a portable tape recorder very similar to that one. It was a Christmas treasure from around 1963 or so. I kept it until my teens and wore it out!
These used DC bias to record, this enabled the head to operate in a linear part of it's magnetic curve, similar to biasing a tube or transistor.
Its great to see a reel to a reel to reel recorder a second chance of life, recording modern things on to the tape while preserving the original recoring on it. Lastly, I love the end of the video where you aligned the cigarette commercial (looks to be from the 60's or 70's) and how it ended so perfect!
I would guess those were targeted at dictation and wouldn't need to be music-level good. Also, the rubber rings driving the motor look tiny and perished; wow and flutter would most likely be restored to a dictation-level of acceptability if you put a couple of new, thick buna rubber grommets on it.
I had to have mine ,I did testing one two three,and that's was all I ever did with it then I got from someone a majic eye tube bigger tape recorder ,that one speed control was off ,got rid of that one two ,then I bought a Sony 255 and Used to copy my albums on to it for long play music ,then my Sony 255 died and I got my money back,the end.
18:00 I started laughing. Excellent wow and flutter! Also liked the bit where even Google had no idea what it was playing.
Gotta appreciate the cleverness in using the least materials possible for the drive mechanism :)
I love it, the cheese is strong with this one! The cardboard anti-resonance padding gives it that audiophile touch too.
Shango, I love your tv resurrection videos, but really dig it when you mess with different types of cool vintage electronics.
Yes. The C cells are in parallel. 1.5 volts (double mAh capacity) for the motor drive , 9V for the electronics. All mechanical actuation is manual, through the knobs. Those batteries must have been installed recently as that battery compartment would have been a mess. That has to be from the mid/late 1960's.
Reminds me of the old Mission Impossible TV show - "this tape will self-destruct in..."
Time for a good head cleaning with rubbing alcohol, also, inthe instructions it was clearly stated that these units wer NOT for recording music
I still think this is a fascinating Japanese product.
My father (whom passed in '95) was in the Navy and instead of writing letters while at sea, he would record his letter to Mom on Kodak tapes. One of his recordings mentioned he used a Star-Brite portable unit which looks just like this one. I've played some of the tapes on that player & his voice "almost" sounds like I remember. Very simple units especially on a government wage!
That would have been a Star Lite, which is the one I had.
Remember that since there is no pinch roller/capstan, and the tape is driven by the edge of the reel, the tape speed is gradually and constantly changing as the reel fills with tape. So these tapes are hard to play back on modern gear that uses a constant speed drive.
You got to love how janky it is. I miss made in Japan, they were the best by the end. You look at the history & they progressed really quickly & the inventiveness of the engineers working with praticly no resorses is just amazing.
Had a rim drive reel to reel almost identical Lloyds brand no speed adjust same magnet erase when I was a wee lad. I remember recording Summer in the city from my AM pocket radio same lapel microphone. I think it cost around $10.00 from Walgreens... Mr. Phelps missed this one....
That recorder looks like it is hub driven instead of capstan driven. The tape speed changes as the tape fills up the take up reel instead of a constant inches per second.
17:55 "I'm ready to cut a new album here" LOL about that
I think we should invent a new certification test: Will it Shango? 100%
I'm surprised about the pristine condition of this thing, even with worn caps, there's not a single speck of filth on that entire recorder.
So I see you captured Blues' intel.
TF2 Reference
I predict that Mumble Rap artists will now start using these machines to master their albums.
This was a kids toy right ?
I went through nearly a dozen of those in my youth.
Putting aside the clumsiness of the machine, it appears to me to be built OK, especially compared to modern cheap electronics.
Good lord... I had friends that had these, were no end of issues with them. I waited until the Craig Panorama came out. Now that was a decent "real tape recorder" I believe it actually had a line in and a speed changing capstan via removing the 3 3/4 you would have 1 7/8
In thought I was king of the hill with that Craig model 212 It was fairly "HiFi"
Thanks shango066, what a blast to trip down this avenue.
Nice! The Craig 212 was a really well built unit. Plus it was featured on Mission Impossible!
I saw a similar recorder in a store for about $10.00 in the early 1960s. I listened to music on "top 40" AM radio stations. We, as teenagers, were stuck with waiting for the DJs to play our favorite songs. We could buy 45 rpm records with one favorite song on each, but, at about $1.00 each in 1960s money, they were expensive and, after we'd heard the song a few times, we'd grow tired of it. I was a knob twiddler and would scan the AM radio dial for my favorite sons at night, when distant radio stations could be received. However, I might only catch the tail part of each song. We relished the idea of being able to record complete songs off the radio and play them back at will.
My Dad recognized that buying one of these machines would just be throwing away money. For Christmas, he bought the family a stereo reel to reel recorder, (with capstan drive, AC erase head and AC bias, and handling 7 inch reels of tape) but I was the one that got the most use out of it. I still have most of my tapes, which I played back into a computer and converted to mp3 format. At the time, I just recorded the songs and not the DJ. Now that most of the songs are available on youtube, I don't need the song recordings. I am sorry that I don't have vintage recordings of the DJs!
Alan Sherman! He's a hoot! Remember "Camp Granada"?
I didn’t recognize the song but I thought it was Allan Sherman, too.
I have about 20 portable reel to reel tape recorders I bought from eBay. Some work, some do not. Nice unit you have there.
Funny thing is tape is possibly the highest quality recording, we’re talking about 15 inches per second master tapes not consumer grade tape. This pile of junk probably has the worst recording quality. It’s interesting to see the difference between junk made back then and today. We all think everything made back in the day was great quality, this is because only the high quality stuff is still around today. Unfortunately today there isn’t any high quality stuff made.
From my experience, I would say that this one comes in at around 1965 or so. Earlier ones were a bit bigger, later ones were a bit better in the playback. In 67 I got my first one with a capstan that would do music.
I have to find the reel to reel I had as a kid
Those were the cheapest tape recorders available in the 1960s. Rim drive Crystal microphone permanent magnet for the erase head. They don't get very loudand do not perform well even though they will make audio. More or less only good for voice. I had a few of these when I was a kid and was never impressed by them. You used to be able to pick them up all you wanted at yard sales and garage sales for a buck apiece
I think the song at the beginning there really rocks UA-cam content I can't bust because they can't figure out what song it is but it's actually a French song but that song really Rocks you should play slow motion it probably even sounds better loool
Alouette is a French song about killing a bird. It sure beats Mrs Miller trying to sing yellow submarine.
Since you are in CA, I'm thinking this was $9.95 at White Front in 1963. 😂 Prolly cost a buck to make. Interesting that rim drive was actually a thing, peer the other comments. Yes performance was disgusting, but this still made for a great video to see a well preserved example. No battery corrosion. Wow. Virginia Slims! Epic ending. Still laughing!!! 🙄😜🙃😆😆🤩
What was the purpose for the 9v battery? Kind of interesting the 1.5v and the 9v
Never seen a magnet used instead of an erase head. Priceless! I bet it degrades the recording with every playback as it is still so near the tape. Looks cool though.
well I can tell you how you lined that up you have good timing and you are very good at editing so wwith that you can do it all fix tv's and stereos and consoles and components and radios and amps and anything you want to fix you can and do a great job all the best happy and healthy holidays and merry christmas
and the tape deck is around 1967 to 1968 era maybe 1966 it looks like 68 73s
Live feed of Shango's spread . . courtesy of Caliph ornia overwatch vulture wing
I love these old Japanesium miniature items. Was that Danny Kaye? Sounded like "Hal" before the speed was changed. Daisy Daisy. . Give me your answer do..
You should make it self destruct.
This came straight out of the mission impossible tv series
Date codes were not as prominent on early Japanese stuff; but, I figure this is from the mid-to-late '60's. By the early '70's, cassettes had pretty much taken the place of these small R2R recorders.
I have a slightly different version which I found at my grandmother's house after she died. Apparently was my uncles when he was a kid around 1965, knowing my grandmother it was probably from Woolworth where she worked. Tried it once and it sounded... About as good as this one. I guess they were mainly meant for kids to play with... But as you saw you can have some fun with something as cheap as this! Mine just used C batteries, and no 9v. I'll have to look for it and see how it compares otherwise.
Those sure look like 8mm film reels from fotomat. Tape reels are usually clear.
its a dictaphone, thats why its not stable, its crap from factory..
I don't suppose that song comes in Stereo or is it just mono LOL
The Avengers, the tape will destroy itself in 5 seconds. a True Hifi device. I had an Aiwa rim drive when I was a kid.
Carefully u don’t get a communist strike 😂
I actually have a clone of this in my basement which I had as a child..I’m guessing 1962 or so...mine uses only one D battery and a 9 V battery too .. and lacks the speed control.
Long live Alan Sherman!!! Right off the TV!
Is that who the original recording was?
@@gregorymalchuk272 Yessir. A funny song writer from the mid-60s I think. That's when I'm from, so most likely. "Hello Mudder Hell Fodder" "On Top of Spaghetti" and the like!
The good old days.
There was actually a stereo rim drive model of this made by AKAI
Was that two machines side by side? :)
Actually, Aiwa. I have one.
aren't those 8mm film reels - when i was a kid they were interchangeable, the ones for tape were transparent. i also remember the early units had both 9V (for the electronics) and 2 C cells for the motors.
Yes, searched the comments to see who picked up on this. In the 60s developed 8mm was sometimes returned on reels with one side solid, with an enveloping plastic "cap" over the other end, sort of like what pipe tape sometimes comes in. The ones for tape reels were open on both sides. They were interchangeable.
@@pghcoyote yesssss, dim memories of little grey reels...oh and i had that song "Tit-Willow" on a Golden kids record or something...
Old capacitors reading double what they should is typical of component failure. They go like this but their voltage handling will be greatly reduced. I'm not an expert in chemistry so I can't tell you why!
richard (UK)
Very nice find its definitely low hour almost the owner got to record that one event on the tape.
Those do seem to be super 8 film reels... on a DC bias rim drive! LOL! Should take any kind of consumer 1/4" tape. I wonder what would happen with professional 1/4" 456 tape but the felt pad and tape backing might not like each-other.
wdavem
Actually standard 8mm reels of that 3” size interchange with the tape reels.
@@w7777777s ok, right. Different spindle sizes.
@@w7777777s I remember there are adapters now
should've changed the genre back to *comedy* for this gag.. because *LOL*
send it to radio -tv phono -nutso for xmas?
you know I'd like to have that thing, some TLC and what not and it would be OK as a dictation machine for novelty
It's DC bias for recording, and permanent magnet for erase. Exactly the same thing is still used today in cheapo cassette recorders.
So mumble rap about "getting it up" is UA-cam family friendly approved but videos of people working on devices like TV sets or cars gets the flag?