|
Vintage Tape (Audio), Cassette, Wire and Magnetic Disc Recorders and Players Open-reel tape recorders, cassette recorders, 8-track players etc. |
|
Thread Tools |
4th Apr 2015, 5:05 pm | #21 |
Moderator
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Fife, Scotland, UK.
Posts: 22,864
|
Re: Is This The Ugliest Cassette Recorder.....Ever?
Getting EVERYTHING wrong is interesting. If what they did had been simply random, they'd have got some things right purely by accident.
There was a science fiction story (Asimov? 1950s?) about someone doing one of those 'Guess which card someone in the next room is currently looking at' ESP experiments being done in a university.... Then they came across a guy who ALWAYS got it wrong and never got it right by chance... David
__________________
Can't afford the volcanic island yet, but the plans for my monorail and the goons' uniforms are done |
4th Apr 2015, 7:49 pm | #22 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Fakenham, Norfolk, UK.
Posts: 4,255
|
Re: Is This The Ugliest Cassette Recorder.....Ever?
The 8304 is a mite too garish for me: funny how so much seemed to go amiss in terms of quality and design shortly after 1982. I'm susceptible to large and solid machines able to give a good account of themselves, so would nominate 1982's D8714/8814 as the beauties of the Philips range, http://www.stereo2go.com/topic/dream...d8814-vs-d8714 - I've not met an 8814, but an 8714 in fine shape came my way for £10 at the local flea market a while back. Can't have been long after that when the range turned to technicolor plastics.
Paul |
5th Apr 2015, 1:36 am | #23 |
Dekatron
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Derby, UK.
Posts: 7,735
|
Re: Is This The Ugliest Cassette Recorder.....Ever?
I think the stereo radio-cassette recorder is an excellent example of how a market matures. The first models, in the mid / late 1970s, were purely functional, and manufacturers were competing on features. Of course, not everybody needs an LCD tape counter, selectable music / speech / manual recording level modes, a rotatable ferrite rod aerial, super-wide stereo or six SW bands. Eventually, a minimal feature set is found that the market can live with. Semiconductor manufacturers begin to produce standard chipsets, and eventually anybody can make one using available parts. The item eventually becomes so ubiquitous, and so homogeneous, that there is so little to choose between any one and another; then the next logical direction is to treat it as a fashion accessory, and so create artificial grounds for selection.
At the beginning and the end of this process, of course, we see some genuine design classics -- and plenty of examples that only a mother could love .....
__________________
If I have seen further than others, it is because I was standing on a pile of failed experiments. |
5th Apr 2015, 7:05 am | #24 | |
Pentode
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: London, UK.
Posts: 222
|
Re: Is This The Ugliest Cassette Recorder.....Ever?
Quote:
Paul |
|
5th Apr 2015, 1:12 pm | #25 |
Octode
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Cornwall, UK.
Posts: 1,275
|
Re: Is This The Ugliest Cassette Recorder.....Ever?
I don't think the "sputnik" to be horrible, I rather ;like the way the designers have worked hard to make it look as un-western as they could, and if I saw one I would buy it for its wrongness
If I chose a Philips machine that I really liked visually it would probably be the N2204 followed by the EL3302 with transparent door Gary |
5th Apr 2015, 6:40 pm | #26 | |
Nonode
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Milton Keynes, Bucks. UK.
Posts: 2,552
|
Re: Is This The Ugliest Cassette Recorder.....Ever?
Quote:
__________________
When I die, please don't let my Wife sell my collection for the amount I told her I paid for it! |
|
6th Apr 2015, 1:01 am | #27 |
Dekatron
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Derby, UK.
Posts: 7,735
|
Re: Is This The Ugliest Cassette Recorder.....Ever?
Those machines must have been a nightmare actually to use!
Not only do you have to reach across the speaker to get to the transport controls, which is bad enough; but the recording level adjustment and indicator are positioned as far away from the operator as possible, so you have to reach across the speaker, tape transport controls and tape compartment!
__________________
If I have seen further than others, it is because I was standing on a pile of failed experiments. |
10th Apr 2015, 11:05 am | #28 |
Retired Dormant Member
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Middlewich, Cheshire, UK.
Posts: 237
|
Re: Is This The Ugliest Cassette Recorder.....Ever?
It looks like something out of the DeWalt range that builders use on site!
|
10th Apr 2015, 2:02 pm | #29 |
Moderator
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Fife, Scotland, UK.
Posts: 22,864
|
Re: Is This The Ugliest Cassette Recorder.....Ever?
The Russians had a direct way of solving problems, so presumably theu bought their Sputnik tape players, and promptly used them upside-down?
Shades of the old joke about NASA spending millions on zero-G ballpoint pen development, and the cosmonauts used a pencil... DAvid
__________________
Can't afford the volcanic island yet, but the plans for my monorail and the goons' uniforms are done |
17th Apr 2015, 2:39 am | #30 |
Heptode
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Daylesford, Victoria, Australia
Posts: 675
|
Re: Is This The Ugliest Cassette Recorder.....Ever?
Soviet stuff tended to be clunky-ugly rather than loud hey-look-at-me ugly, and is therefore slightly more lovable.
Some of those trendy-looking Singapore-designed machines had unfixable plastic cog drives and permanent magnet erase. That was the worst thing about them, but I suppose they weren't normally used for recording.
__________________
The Waves That Rule Britannia Last edited by suebutcher; 17th Apr 2015 at 2:48 am. |