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Old 15th Jul 2018, 7:33 pm   #47
ricard
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Lund, Sweden
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Default Re: Agaphone Wire Recorder

There certainly was a connection. From the Swedish wikipedia page on Philips (translated) (https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philips):

"1923 the Swedish AB Philips with 40 employees was formed. Philips owned the Swedish radio and TV brands Dux and Concerton, as well as Radiola and Stella for a while, as well as Aga radio and televsion. From 1940 the production of radios and later TVs took place in Philips factory in Norrköping. Production stopped in 1979."

So it certainly makes sense that there are Philips parts to be found in your Agaphone.

On the other hand, the Wikipedia article on Aga (https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aga_(f%C3%B6retag) ) just mentions that the radio and TV production was sold to Philips in 1971 which would be much too late. Could be that Aga used Philips and Electrolux to manufacture sub-assemblies. (Aga made some tape recorders in the 1960s which were based on the ubiquitous BSR TD10 chassis for instance.)

Great thread BTW. I've seldom seen such a detailed description, teardown, and photos of a wire recorder. Regardless of the audio quality, they are rare enough to warrant saving.

As for sound quality, wire recorders were also marketed for music recording, however, the takeup reel would have been much larger, often doubling as a record player turntable to make a combined wire recorder / record player, no doubt to make it economically feasible for the general public. I've got a couple of those, and I don't find that wow and flutter are the main issues when recording on the device. But the large diameter take-up reel means that the relative fluctuations due to varying wire thickness are much smaller than with the Agaphone small diameter reels.

The wire is probably not terribly special as far as wire recorders go, but I think it might be hard to find a modern-day substitute with the required properties, so finding an old spool of wire, not necessarily the same type of spool if some way can be found of winding one onto the other, is probably the easiest way to go.

Last edited by ricard; 15th Jul 2018 at 7:48 pm. Reason: More info on Aga.
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