Elizabethan Compette

[TonyDuell]

Some time ago I was wondering if there ever was a valved cassette recorder. I don't mean some audiophool thing where a normal cassette recorder has a cathode follower added to give 'valve sound' but rather a cassette recorder/player where the amplifier was mostly/all valved

I thought it was unlikely as by the time the compact cassette came out (1963?) audio transistors were pretty common.

Turns out I was wrong. Yesterday I saw a mains powered cassette recorder called an Elizabethan Compette (LZ613). It's in a rexine-covered wooden cabinet with a lift up lid over most of the top (towards the left). The right hand section contains a side mounted speaker. Under the lid are the cassette deck with a storage space for 6 cassettes alongside it and a control panel. This has volume (and I assume recording level) and tone controls, the latter ganged with the mains switch. 4 phono sockets (microphone input, radio input, monitor output, extension speaker). And the recording level indicator. The last surprised me as it looked like an EM84 rather than a meter movement. Later inspection revealed I was right, it is an EM84.

It uses the Philips deck, as in the EL3300, etc with that well-known control you push forwards for record/play and shift to one side or the other. And a separate record button.

Anyway, the rear part of the internal cover comes off with 2 screws revealing the amplifier. It's a PCB with 2 valves, ECC83 and ECL86. I didn't spot a transistor on it, but there might be one for impedance matching.

For purists it's not entirely valved. HT comes from a metal rectifier hidden in the right hand section (along with the mains and output transformers) behind the speaker. And the deck mechanism has the normal Philips speed control board with 2 transistors on it.

I can't find service data on it anywhere. However the valve lineup is similar to other Elizabethan models so the circuitry might be similar.

Has anyone else come across this thing?

[Reelman]

I think I saw one at an antique shop probably 15 years ago. I was tempted but it seemed rather large for a cassette machine, would have had it now!
The advert for it is currently on sale on eBay, just search on:

ELIZABETHAN LZ 613 COMPACT CASSETTE SYSTEM

It lists the spec and valve complement.

Interesting machine.

Peter

[Paul_RK]

Originally Posted by TonyDuell

I thought it was unlikely as by the time the compact cassette came out (1963?) audio transistors were pretty common.

And this machine seems only to have appeared in 1967. Probably you've found almost the only link Google supplies, to a World Radio History PDF of Practical Wireless for December '67 including a report on August's trade shows:

"Elizabethan showed two larger cassette models, the LZ613 Compette, a mains-operated model with 3W output, and the LZ612 which, at 45 guineas, provides an output of 5+W to a built-in 10in. speaker and may be operated from mains, battery or a car supply."

Can't say I've ever met either: the LZ612 is of course transistorised

https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...ad.php?t=83691 .

Perhaps the lack of a retail price for the Compette signals that it wasn't quite ready to market, and Elizabethan seem to have abandoned the tape recorder field only a little later.

Paul

[DMcMahon]

Not exactly "compact" as the sales leaflet suggests, sales leaflet also says "incomparable" which I guess is true.

Wonder why they chose "Compette" as the name ? I do not think it is a direct translation of compact in any language.

David

[terry123]

I've had one in the collection for some years and have never come across another . If memory serves it uses a BC107 in the "front end" and the circuit board is similar to an an elizabethian Elite ECC83 & EL84 and an EM84 . Due to restore this for a future BVWS bulletin article along with the other early elizabethian cassette based models from this time that I have. The firm were quick to embrace the format in the UK and may have actually been the first
I suspect the compette was withdrawn from the market quite quickly. Mine has a distinct prototype look about it !
regards Terry

[Paul_RK]

Originally Posted by DMcMahon

Not exactly "compact" as the sales leaflet suggests... Wonder why they chose "Compette" as the name ?

Well, it's smaller than the LZ612

Maybe just from the then widespread full name of the medium itself, the front half of "compact" and back half of "cassette", with no implied comment on the size of the machine.

[Nickthedentist]

These two machines would have made good "schools" models.

At my primary school, they had EL3302s etc. which could barely be heard across a quiet classroom.

For more meaty duties, they always used Tandberg reel-to-reel machines, well into the 1980s.

[DMcMahon]

Originally Posted by Paul_RK

Maybe just from the then widespread full name of the medium itself, the front half of "compact" and back half of "cassette".

I think Paul you have hit the nail on the head.

David

[ben]

Originally Posted by Nickthedentist

These two machines would have made good "schools" models.

At my primary school, they had EL3302s etc. which could barely be heard across a quiet classroom.

For more meaty duties, they always used Tandberg reel-to-reel machines, well into the 1980s.

That's just what I was thinking, Nick. Certainly has that look about it. I wonder if Coomber or Clarke & Smith made anything similar back then?

It might be interesting to see what if any valve-solid state cassette kit was made stateside, though I suspect they would have used transistors before we did.

[TonyDuell]

I've now got the Elizabethan Compette in bits on the bench...

The deck is clearly Philips, there's the normal motor control PCB with an AC127 and an AC128 transistor on it.

The amplifier is built on the same PCB as that in the Elizabethan Elite 2 (ERT sheet avalable up top). There are a few track cuts, components changed in value, and some components added on the solder side. In particular a BC114 transistor acting as an impedance matching stage for the low-impedance head.

The amplfier valves are an ECC83 and an ECL86. Their functions are :

ECC83 triode (a) : Microphone/head preamplifier

ECC83 triode (b) + ECL86 triode : equalisation amplifier

ECL86 pentode : loudspeaker output, bias/erase oscillator.

There's also an EM84 used as a recoding level indicator. It has some kind of metal rectifiier in the input.

PSU is a mains transfomer with a 6.3V and HT (not measured it yet) secondary. The former feeds the valve heaters, of course, there's a humdinger pot across it. It's also bridge rectified and smoothed to provide the DC for the motor circuit, meaning that no point in the motor circuit can be earthed. The HT secondary, not surprisingly, is bridge rectified and used to provide the anode voltages for the amplfier valves.

Oddly there is no mains voltage selector. The mains transformer primary just has 2 tags.

I have traced out the circuit, but I am not sure I can post it here as it could be taken to be a version of the Eliite 2.

As for repairing it, some resistors have gone high, whether that matters remains to be seen. The drive belts have turned to Evil Goo, so I'll have to strip and clean the deck mechanism.

[paulsherwin]

I hadn't heard of this model. I must say it seems completely deranged for 1967 - it must have been obvious which way the wind was blowing by then.

[TonyDuell]

As I mentioned in my first message, some time ago I wondered if such a machie had ever existed. That is a mono cassette recorder with a valve amplifier. I considered it unlikely for the same sort of reasons that Paul suggests -- by the 1960s audio transistors were well-established, there was no sane reason to use valves.

And then this thing turned up at a local antique market.

I'd never seen one before, but as I collect tape recorders I bought it After buying it I noticed that the level indicator looked like a tuning indicator valve, possibly an EM84 (good guess, that's what it is) which seemed odd. Of course when I got it home I removed the covers and noticed the amplifier valves.

I can still see no good reason why it was made. Was it simply to use up Elite 2 amplifier boards ?

[paulsherwin]

I suppose there were a few luddites who just distrusted transistor tech, but I suspect this was a desperate model by a manufacturer who saw their market disappearing and didn't know what to do next. This definitely wasn't the way forward though.

[Ted Kendall]

The Fidelity Braemar trundled on into the seventies with valves, I think, and then there were their transistor record players with valve output transformers. Trying to shift obsolescent components, no doubt - but the Compette is something else again...

[60136 Alcazar]

I wonder if the chief design engineer at Elizabethan had already left when this appeared??

[TonyDuell]

I have now done a little more on my Compette.

It has a 3 core mains lead, old colours, which look to be original. Inside the machine the green lead goes to a solder tag on a chassis bolt, the other 2 wires go to the switch on the back of the tone control. The plug on the far end of that cable was one of those BC lampholder adapter plug thing, with the earth wire flapping about outside. Now replaced with BS1363 plug.

It 'meggered' OK, about 60MOhms between chassis and mains wiring at 1000V. So I plugged it in, no valves fitted. HT came up, and stayed up for a good few minutes after I turned it off. So metal rectfier and smoothing capacitor seems fine. No voltagses on the capacitively coupled control grids of the valves, so 'that capacitor' and its brothers are fine. The capacitors are a mix of ceramics and 'Mullard Mustards' BTW. Motor runs if I fiddle with the switch under the mechanism, but with no belts nothing else turns.

Powered down and fitted the valves. After warming up, the amplifier seems to work, a 'buzz test' on the head connections had the expected result. The EM84 was not lighting up, and I couldn't see the heater glow from it. Turned the unit off, pulled the EM84 out, checked the heater wiring back to the transformer -- fine. Checked the heater continuity -- also fine. Cleaned the pins, put it back in, and tried again. Worked fine.

Now got the mechanism in lots of bits on the bench. Cleaning off the Evil Goo from the old belts. One surprise was that the heads and pinch roller were covered in oxide from tape. This machine has been used quite a bit. I would have guessed it would have been replaced by a transistorised model fairly soon after being bought, but apparently not.

[ben]

Originally Posted by TonyDuell

One surprise was that the heads and pinch roller were covered in oxide from tape. This machine has been used quite a bit

Remember that old FE tapes used to shed oxide appallingly. Pick up, for instance, one of those yellow/black BASF ones from circa 1975 and you will soon see!

It only takes a couple of plays to coat the tape path.

[fetteler]

Originally Posted by DMcMahon

...Wonder why they chose "Compette" as the name ? I do not think it is a direct translation of compact in any language.

I guess it's a shortened forrm on COMPact casETTE.

Steve.

PS I just read the thread more carefully and see that Paul (post 3) beat me too it by some distance!

[TonyDuell]

I've got my Compette working and off the bench. All it needed were new drive belts, really.

I had to strip and clean the mechanism, of course. The old belts, being Philips. had turned to Evil Goo.

There were a couple of small repairs on the case, and I fitted a new mains plug. The unit has a 3 core cable, it came with an un-earthed BC adapter on the end. I fitted a normal BS1363 plug of course.

Attached are photos of the amplifier board component side, a close-up of the transistor on the solder side, the underside of the mechanism, the motor speed controller (clearly Philips) and the assembled machine.

The grille over the amplifier is not original. It had cracked and was distorted. I found a larger replacement in my junk box and fitted that.

[Sideband]

That looks like the old Philips EL3302 mech (or possibly the later version of the earlier EL3301).