"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Iain Churches wrote:
The 1950's were a very interesting time in tape recording.
I can remember a 76cms Magnetophon recorder on which the
erase head got so hot that it would burn a hole in the tape
when the transport was not moving, if you did not put a
match stick between.

Surely the EMI BTR series were around by then - to all intents and
purposes a modern tape machine?

Was the BTR1 a predecessor to the TR90 ?
I remember well the BTR2, and also the BTR4
which came out circa 1966 (whatever happened to the BTR3?)



IIRC, the Magnetophon dates from the
early '40s - and was the basis for the EMI BTR1.

Yes. The Magnetophon was the machine that the Allies
brought back from Germany as part of the spoils of War.
It had baffled the Allies for some time that the Germans
were able to broadcast pre-recorded speeches by
Hitler from Berlin without give-away disc noise, and put them
out as supposedly live transmissions, when it was known for
certain that he was elsewhere.

Arthur Haddy stated that the Allies brought back four
Magnetophon machines, two of which went to what became
Ampex in the USA, one to EMI at Hayes, and one to Decca.

Nothing beats a real "high tech" solution:-)

I remember a cheap tape deck in the '50s that had no capstan - so the tape
speed varied with the amount on the reels. Disaster if you broke the tape
and had to junk some.

Wonderful!

Iain