Quote:
Originally Posted by afterburn 549
And how many of us own reel to reel tape?
Sounds like a novelty for the extream Hobbyist, pretty much way off topic, and unaffordable for most people.
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I have an extremely early one that was made for commercial recording use. Its mono but it has a huge amp with different inputs and giant tape heads, about 1" diameter, circa 1952 made by bradmaster in birmingham. it came with an acetate reel with an interesting documentary about building a ring road around brminham after it was bombed out in the war. the company later got involved in mellotrons and that's another fascinating story. It had some Beatles recordings and Im not sure if they are original, likely not but i need to verify somehow. the old acetate tapes are fragile so I want to re-record this stuff. the deck has 10 inch reels and a wooden cabinet.
the thing is made for 220V 50 cycle so it will run too fast here on 60 cycle. I' ll need to change some gearing and it's mono but still neat. the tape deck with it's amp is the same size as a dishwasher.
before tape decks there were wire recorders, that was the previous technology.
I picked up a amp and then a tube tuner from the later 50's or early 60's I saw the same one on happy days. 20 watts I think , it runs 6L6's
I collect and restore old tube radios mostly from he 20's and 30's some later. some amps and tape decks and interesting things find their way into my collection. mainly I gravitate to Art Deco stuff but I like some of the really early gear, I collect some Bakelite and interesting shaped ones. I have tables, lamps early (1930's ) clocks etc that are also radios and find this sort of dual purpose stuff helps display more without it getting too repetitive. I could probably fix tube amps but the collectors of audiophile stuff are fickle, old radios are not generally very high fidelity and you won't hear about old radio owners going into detail about which tube sounds sweeter, or how hard they can drive their tubes, but rather why it wont work when it has come to them with 6 different reasons not to work after spending it's former life as a mouses house. It's almost never profitable but its fun to restore them. a lot is the cabinet work , refinishing lacquer mostly. I have amassed enough projects that I can never say I'm bored. Its a fun hobby but there is a tendency for older people to respect them more and there are not a lot of young tube radio restorations to pass the torch to.
When I do find a likely victim with a passion for them, I'll probably send them home with people giving him the high beams because his back tires will look half flat. Getting old radios to pay rent for their bedrooms is very difficult.