StereoReview: TAPE RECORDER GUIDE 1973

[JonUrban]

I found this in a stack of old things in a closet that is designated for decluttering! I thought it was great! I checked the forum quickly to see if I ever posted anything from this in the past and it appears that I had not. So here we go. You guys will get a real charge out of section four, which is all 4 channel stuff. Some of it I don't think ever saw the light of day, or if it did, it was damn rare. Lots of scope type displays and stuff.

I will scan the pages and post them in this thread in the next few days. Check back for updates.

To start off with, here are the front and back scans of the magazine. Very cool.

 

[JonUrban]

BTW - If anyone knows that this thing is available to browse on the internet, let me know. You will save me a lot of scanning!!!

 

[JonUrban]

Pages 91, 92, 93, 94 - Start of Section Four:

 

[JonUrban]

The next four pages:

 

[JonUrban]

Next four:

 

[JonUrban]

Last few pages of Section Four:

 

[Sonik Wiz]

The History of Radio website has a great archive of Stereo Review's including Tape/Buyers Guide for '72 & ''74 but not 1973! So thanks for going to all this work. The image quality is excellent & a blast to read. I'd love to get a look at the Matrix Systems compared article too.

 

[aludra]

Thank you Jon for posting this great stuff...Sure brings back memories when I was a teenager drooling over my copies of stereo review and Audio magazines and saving my money from summer jobs to buy these kewl looking stereos/tape machines....I guess its like old classic cars....They just don't look as slick nowadays as they used to "In our day"

 

[JonUrban]

Here is the "Miscellaneous" section. Most of it is stereo stuff, but I found it very entertaining to look through as some of the stuff is really bizarre. So here you go:

 

[JonUrban]

More Misc:

 

[JonUrban]

This is a TELEX unit that was in with the stereo stuff. It's kind of funny to look at today.
I guess in 1973 the quad version hadn't been thought of yet! Can you imagine the tangled up tape mess there would be in there if one of the carts had the tape sucked out of it?

 

[Sonik Wiz]

More Misc:

View attachment 63586

View attachment 63587

Looks like out board Dolby boxes were pretty important back then.

A reminder that AUDIO magazine had an annual & very comprehensive equipment guide every October. Those are also on the History of Radio site.

 

[aludra]

I owned that Advent 100A Dolby unit with a walnut case.....It worked well and I used it with my R2R as well as cassette machines....Those were the days....Love looking at this old stuff and going to audio shops and listening in the demo rooms and going back home to figure out a way to earn the money to buy it all...

 

[surround.sound.enthusiast]

This is a TELEX unit that was in with the stereo stuff. It's kind of funny to look at today.
I guess in 1973 the quad version hadn't been thought of yet! Can you imagine the tangled up tape mess there would be in there if one of the carts had the tape sucked out of it?

Whoa! I stumbled across a cassette changer like this on the internet, but have never seen one for 8-tracks.

Also, I find it interesting that the Electro-Voice EVX-4 sold for $59.95, whereas the Heath AD-2002 sold for only $29.95.
Ah! No - that's because is the kit version, never mind! Meanwhile, Realistic hadn't made it out yet with their ARS-4 identical product.

 

[kfbkfb]

P.91 - the Astrocom/Marlux 307 discrete Quad compatible compact cassette machine appears again (I wonder how close they came to marketing it, pictures and descriptions of it were published in various magazines for more than a year).


Kirk Bayne

 

[doity]

It is amazing the stuff (crap) that the stereo manufacturers peddled back in the day to the masses. As a young person I was convinced that all of that stuff was necessary to own and that I was “doing it wrong” if I didn’t have it. I mean some of the accessories were cool but a lot of the stuff was just meant to make $ from the unsuspecting consumer.

I remember when I first put together my first component system I was a sucker and was buying all of those do-dads. I remember buying the tape demagnetizers and such and even got suckered into buying this crazy looking FM antenna from Sony that looked like some kind of sonar antenna. Don’t know how well it worked but it looked cool.

 

[doity]

Whoa! I stumbled across a cassette changer like this on the internet, but have never seen one for 8-tracks.

Also, I find it interesting that the Electro-Voice EVX-4 sold for $59.95, whereas the Heath AD-2002 sold for only $29.95.
Ah! No - that's because is the kit version, never mind! Meanwhile, Realistic hadn't made it out yet with their ARS-4 identical product.

Yes, those changer machines were pretty rare as I only know about a few of them for each of the tape formats. I know that Pioneer made a few decent home cassette changers in the 90’s but they must had been expensive as I never saw one until much later. I actually had for quite awhile a cassette changer for the car. It was a aftermarket Eclipse or Alpine and the thing was crazy expensive and complicated. Were talking a couple thousand or more brand new in the late 80’s.

It used fiber optic cables to send the audio from the changer unit to the radio and each cassette caddy had individual switches for Dolby and maybe the tape type. I think that it held 7 tapes and it even had this illuminated ‘memo’ device that mounted on the dash to remind you what tapes were in what slot and the Dolby settings. You had to fill out little index cards to slip into the device....I just used my internal RAM to remember as it was too much of a hassle to fill those cards out constantly. It was a car stereo installers worst nightmare let me tell you but it was a excellent tape deck that worked well all things considered.

 

[barfle]

I still have a Sont SQD-1000 packed away.

 

[GOS]

I was only 10 years old in 1973. I started buying Stereo Review in 1975!! Yes, with money I made myself. Parents would never have paid for a magazine for me.

 

[Soundfield]

Yes, those changer machines were pretty rare as I only know about a few of them for each of the tape formats. I know that Pioneer made a few decent home cassette changers in the 90’s but they must had been expensive as I never saw one until much later.

There was also the wonderfully clunky Panasonic RS-296US -
Panasonic Changer
But my favourite was the fabulously low tech Philips N2401 fitted with the N6711 "Ski Slope"-
Philips Changer