I owned this machine as the Sony TC-152SD. It was really a fabulous recorder, perhaps the best I ever had before my current Sound Devices 722. It's worth noting that Sony's CrO2 setting increased the record bias and applied EQ on record-only, the result being a better frequency response rather than attempting to improve S/N ratio. I wish I had it still. I'd enjoy trying it out using some of my more recent microphones. No phantom power though!
RARE Magnecord PT6-BN Binaural Recording Amplifier ~1st Stereo Tape Recorder | eBay RARE Magnecord PT6-BN Binaural Recording Amplifier ~1st Stereo Tape Recorder
Per RARE Magnecord PT6-BN Binaural Recording Amplifier ~1st Stereo Tape Recorder | eBay Time left: Time left: 53m 1s Time Left 54m 0s Today 10:00PM Current bid: US $1,485.00 [ 25 bids ] "Up for bids a very rare Magnecord PT6-BN "Binaural" Magnetic Tape Recorder/Amplifier. This was a $900 recorder when released in 1951, which may account for its rarity. This amplifier has Triad input and output transformers. Item is in good condition. The outer case is aged and the hardware (corner braces, buckles) has some surface corrosion. The amplifier itself is in excellent condition - see pictures. All tubes tested good. Unit was powered on slowly using a metered variac. The amplifier runs stable drawing rated current at idle. No other testing done and overall functionality is unknown. Unit is sold with the understanding that it is 65 years old and will probably need some updating before being placed into use. Fairly heavy unit at 38 pounds before packing."
How about its Johnny-come-lately wireless charging with the latest iPhone? I have been using wireless charging on my Nokia Lumia 920 for almost five years ...
I did not realize the inventor of the cassette tape has produced such a monster cassette deck! This is almost as tall as the Philips open-reel deck shown below or is it an optical illusion?
They've had the ability to add wireless charging for years, so who knows why they haven't. Probably felt it hadn't caught on well enough to be worth the space it would take inside the case. A bit like dbx really. Cool tech, but never caught on and wasn't worth the cost because of a lack of widespread support.
I wonder how many replacement pairs of AirPods people have to buy for the life of an iPhone without the headphone jack? Can you just buy one instead of the pair?
Apple I believe will hand over single EarPod replacements if you lose one. Not many people are reporting lost EarPods, though, which is a bit surprising. Anyhow, that's clearly where the market is headed, so...
It's pretty tall, that's for sure. Maybe not quite that tall, but out of proportion to pretty much every other tape deck I've seen, apart from maybe B&O models designed to be wall mounted or something...
There are some similarities between the chassis of the open-reel deck and that ultra-tall cassette deck ...
Before my Sony tape deck with 3 heads and Dolby S I got a mid range Sony deck back in early 1991 also with 3 heads and Dolby B and C. By its rated specs it could record up to 18000 Hz with Metal tapes which I thought was untrue. This is the first time I opened a tape deck trying to locate a speed trim control so I could increase the speed of tape both recording and playing. With this deck I got around 60 minutes of recording out of a 90 minutes tape. This allowed me to record higher frequencies because of the faster tape speed. Next step was to "do my own noise reduction". I bought a Pioneer 20 band equalizer which let me store up to 10 equalization curves presets. I had a Denon CD player at the time with two RCA outputs, one was fixed and the second one was variable with its remote controller, amplifiers didn't use to have remote controllers in the early 90's so the variable output went to the amplifier and the fix output went to the equalizer and from it to the tape deck. What I basically did with this set up was enfasize during recording to de-enfasize on playback with the equalizer. I left the midrange almost untouched, my equalization/de-equalization worked mostly on deep bass, which was problematic for cassette decks and upper mids and treble that was where most of noise was. I experimented a lot and in the end I did two equalization curves, one for Rock/Pop music, and another one to record orchestral recordings, mostly movie soundtracks. Both of my equalizations worked better than Dolby B or even C, as I enfasized deep bass, tape rumble was inaudible when playing with deep bass de-enfasized. Tape hiss was still there but playing those tapes with the recording curved inverted during playback made it almost inaudible, much better than with Dolby B and C. It didn't matter that sometimes I had to set recording level a bit too low because of heavy increase on certain frequencies, bass mostly, but then the tapes ended up sounding very very quiet. As the equalization and de-equalization curves I used acted like fixed filters this didn't have the problems with the artifacts Dolby B and C has. Downside, my tapes were to be played on this tape deck only with that Pioneer equalizer only which had the recording and playing curves stored. Next year I moved to a Sony 3 head deck with Dolby S so no equalization, no increase in speed, just pop in the tape, adjust recording level (the Denon CD player had a function to detect the highest peak on a CD) and bias, press Record and that was it.
Here is a nice Philips open-reel deck I have never seen in the US. We should start a thread on reel-to-reel ...
Surely there's already a reel to reel thread here? R2R had died out in Phoenix where I grew up by the early '80s - if not sooner - but when I visited Manhattan in 2001 and hit up the Tower Records near the Village (at least, I think it was near the Village) I was stunned to see they still had a little corner upstairs with some old prerecorded reel to reel tapes for sale. Now I regret not buying a few, although I think they were virtually all classical titles and were at least 20 years old at that point.
This one seems to have plenty of stuff. Even a dbx disc input. Noice. I kinda like that 70s and 80s decks tended to have mic inputs. Not sure how many folks used them, but it’s nice that they’re there.
There’s a YouTube fella what says the Pioneer CT-95 is the best deck ever. Never seen one personally.
I think the only Dolby S decks I recall seeing in person were the Sonys. I saw several of those at The Good Guys here in San Francisco in the late '90s/early '2000s. I might have seen them crop up at Circuit City, too.
Oh yeah, I know - just don't remember seeing any in the flesh. I'm trying to remember which brands The Good Guys and Circuit City even carried. Besides Sony, I know Circuit City had Onkyo. Technics too, although they were winding down by 2000 or so. The Good Guys had JVC decks - I remember looking at a really nice one there, once. I don't think it had Dolby S, but it might have. I'm assuming one or both carried Pioneer, but I don't remember looking much at their equipment (which I thought was hideously ugly during that period). I think one of them might have carried Denon.
Those that carried Pioneer rarely carried their Elite series, which was the very best of Pioneer, it's last swan song. So for cassette decks that meant the CT-91, 93, & 95, all 3 were world class decks, with the 93 & 95 having Dolby S, all having HX PRO. I was fortunate living out in my small village to have a Radio Shack near me that get this....oddly half the store was a Pioneer Elite dealer carrying all the Elite series, all on display. Audio/video. The owner was gaga on Pioneer Elite, so he made it so for his store. I bought my rare Pioneer Elite Speakers there, the DSS-5, DSS-7, DSS-E6, DSS-E10 and the best speaker Pioneer EVER made, the mighty TZ-9. I also got my Pioneer C91 Elite Preamp and M-91 Elite power ampo there, as well as my A-91D Elite Integrated amp and A-717 Reference integrated amp and PD-91 Elite CD player. All were state of the art and amazing and I have all of them still. Same with Onkyo, the Entrga and Grand integra were thie best and rarely carried. I have an Onkyo Integra 2080 cassette deck, a near world class deck with HX PRO, but too early for Dolby S. JVC had near the end of their run one stellar deck, no Dolby S ,but it did have HX PRO, the TDV 1010 deck, a 20+ pound serious attempt at a world class deck, with stunning results. Rare in it's day, and even rarer today. JVC TD-V1010 - Manual - Stereo Cassette Deck - HiFi Engine
