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Why did they give them the name of "Charly" decks anyway?
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I think it was Philips designation, ie. the earlier deck was known as "ECHO" or E deck (Phonetic alphabet eg. Foxtrot, Tango etc.)
This was "C" or Charlie, I don't know why the "echo" deck came before the "charlie" though, Philips and God only knows
We knew them also as C-Wrap ( the shape of the tape when loaded), with it's unfortunate connotations
amongst other unkind names.
They earned a name as a "bit of a Bogie" in the trade (possibly unfairly), but as I said, I did not find them too bad,
There were reliability problems with the earlier versions, I believe there many modifications throughout it's production run, and they were no worse than anything else by the end.
Philips always did things their own way, different to everybody else.
There was a definite knack/method to repairing the mech. on this series.
I originally took home a scrap deck (U/S Heads) and a manual, and practised.
ISTR another engineer showed me a few "secrets" (ie. changing the pinch roller without stripping down the mech.)
Using a 9V battery to put the deck at 5 o'clock etc.
They were just different.
RE: The Grundig C-Wrap, this was not a charly deck, it just used a similar tape wrap, (similar as in the later Sony betamax, C9 onwards used this type of tape wrap).
As I said, this deck was rumoured to be assembled by a machine in the factory.
Sideband worked at philips and he will know more than me, or maybe Maarten, about the methodology of philips
I can only speak from experience (and most of that I forgot
)
If I can answer anything else about about these, I will be glad to
I welcome comments or corrections/additions from other posters.
Cheers,
Baz