Q4: Tascam 44 & 44OB

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Quad Linda

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Tascam 44 & 44 OB
Vintage: 1970's
Rarity: Somewhat Rare


More from Tascam, Teac's pro division.

Tascam 44:
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Tascam 44 OB:
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TE-127.jpg
 
There's a really ancient 44 I saw once. Must have been made in the early 1960s. Got a picture of that one?
 
What seems odd is Teac claims Tascam wasn't even invented until around 1970 but the machine I saw looked older than that. It was at a store that sold used hi-fi equipment. The store didn't last long. They wanted $500 for that piece of junk.
 
The Phillips patent on the compact cassette demanded that all recorders must be compatible with all cassette players ... e.g. 1 7/8 ips tape speed, and 2 (mono) or 4 (stereo) tracks recorded on two sides of the tape (and physically flipped to play the other side). That ruled out quadraphonic decks (which required all 4 tracks to be recorded in the same direction), or decks that ran at 3 3/4 ips. Even dbx noise reduction was an issue, since playback without dbx decoding wasn't a pleasant experience. Keep in mind that Phillips never intended the cassette tape to be a high fidelity medium, only for dictation machines. Once the patent ran out though, all bets were off and multi-track and two-speed decks started to enter the marketplace. Sadly, it was too late for quad.
 
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