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Wow, that's old...

DoctorSpuds

Entry posted by DoctorSpuds

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I managed to snag something rather unexpected on a recent thrifting trip: A positively ancient Shoebox Cassette Recorder. How old you ask? If I read the dates correctly then about 49 years old. But that's not all! The cassette mechanism itself appears to be based on Philips earliest portable mechanism that appeared on the EL3300 from 1964. This beauty is the GE M8440A and you can see everything it has to offer with the briefest glance. The only reason I picked it up was due to how old it looked and because I've never seen play controls that are literally just a single lever and waves the play head around.

20211007_182200.thumb.jpg.02b00816d225b8e33d79af0605010c87.jpg

Unsurprisingly it didn't work. The belts have dried up so I'm using rubber bands in the interim, and one of the wires to the play head has snapped. But with a little bit of TLC and bodging I have it up and partially running. The amount of wow and flutter is pretty astonishing and it plays a bit slow. That being said, it sounds about on par with modern cassette mechanisms, and the fact that the sound is coming out of something that really looks the part, and was probably meant for dictation, is just completely charming. 

 

I also took a moment to make an illustration of it.

436497092_GE_Cassette_Deck_Perspective_Fix.thumb.png.84c10e6e84454edcc635a61d1f3a1e2f.png

I also got some period correct(ish) music recorded from it. It's incredibly cursed.

Is You Is.mp3

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2 Comments

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Keatah

All the wow & flutter is likely coming from the rubberband. Too stretchy. Try Turntableneedles.com to see about a replacement. They have a lot of info about fitting the right size and will work with you.

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DoctorSpuds
9 hours ago, Keatah said:

All the wow & flutter is likely coming from the rubberband. Too stretchy. Try Turntableneedles.com to see about a replacement. They have a lot of info about fitting the right size and will work with you.

Almost certainly. I've had decent luck with rubber bands before but these are nothing but placeholders. The  belts are in really easy to reach locations so I'm just being lazy and putting off replacing them.

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