*Correction:* As several viewers pointed out, the circuitry does switch between different equalizations for 8-track and cassette playback. And the idler wheel and smaller flywheel do change the speed for playing cassettes, but not the direction of rotation; instead, that's accomplished by the 8-track and cassette capstans being on opposite sides of the tape. (Also, upon closer inspection I found a 1980 date code on the speakers.)
As I was watching the video I thought "Same eq stage for both? It's not going to do the best job for either". I was going to comment upon that, too. I'm glad you found that out.
A 47-year-old Japanese device it still works! Who would have thought! I appreciate all the work that went into making this video so that we could enjoy it! Thank you!
To be fair my PlayStation 2 AND 3 were both replaced multiple times under warranty and again out of the 1 year warranty…. They’re Japanese products. Quality is time subjective it seems.
@@AcornElectron I wasn't implying that Japanese products are necessarily better (although generally they are). I was just simply marveling at the fact that the 8 track /cassette player still works after 47 years and giving VWestlife a compliment for the hard work he put in to making this video. And while any device from any country could fail the fact is I still have 3 Sony carousel CD players and one Sony CD player /recorder, 5 mini disc decks and over 40 portable Sony mini disc players and recorders that still function just fine. Some of these are more than 30 years old. Not to mention several portable CD players well as as my Sony TC-WE-305 cassette deck. All still working fantastic. I hate to keep editing this comment and harping on this subject but I forgot to mention that I also have a working PlayStation 2 in my garage. And last but not least let's not forget my wife's Toyota Camry with 273,000 mi on it!
@@AcornElectronhis looks like a Matsushita Electric product. Most of my Panasonic stuff is still working. Soundesign is a product that had OEMs. So that Soundesign might be built by a different manufacturer and outsourced.
I had a similar Soundesign system in my bedroom when I was a kid that my Dad bought from a yard sale. The one I had also had a turn table at the top. I had it for several years and I knew it played 8-Tracks, but you can imagine my surprise when I was messing around with it one day and discovered that it could play cassettes! I was shocked!
Side note: Player equalization for cassette and 8-track changes using the same switch that controls the heads. On the schematic diagram south-west of the pre-amp IC the switch changes a network of resistors and capacitors which controls equalization in the feedback loop. Great video as usual thanks.
This mechanism is the definition of over engineering, especially the Fast-Forward part of it, and I can't help but be amazed to know that such thing once made its way to a budget device. Thanks for the video
latching fast forward like that was common on many 'cheap' car radio cassette players and the cassette players in those 'fake' 'vintage' radios, in those it also doubled as eject, if you pushed it fully in hard
@@LapisandHamtarolover nope, never seen that type mechanism in them, the ff/eject lever would stick out too much on a walkman type thing once tape is inserted, they usually have a separate ff button, if one at all
What fascinating content, who knew? I certainly didn't , great video - between you and Techmoan , the pair of you always manage to pull the rare, extraordinary and fascinating consumer electronic products from somewhere, brilliant.
What a wonderful machine. Basically, it's a full-fledged stereo system! Cassette and 8-track player, two band radio and an amplifier in one case! Intricate mechanism too. Too bad it didn't take off in big production numbers.
@@aperson6955 Or a turntable with a built in pre-amp. Or with external pre-amp. Basically, you can connect anything, that outputs signal around 250 mV. It's a wonderful thing, when you want your system to take less space.
That is amazing! Such a cool and well built mechanism. End of the 70s was peak build quality home audio equipment, but still impressive that even Soundesign churned out something lasting. How different from just a few years later where most of these mechanisms turned into plastic rubbish. To be fair, this Soundesign must have been stored properly to still have the rubber parts work as well as they do.
Many manufacturers got the rubber parts from different dealers back then that some made parts that would decay faster than others, and those who made rubber parts that was literally immune to age. I've had equipments from the 60's where the rubber parts had turned into tar before that equipment was 25 years old (repairing it in the 90's), whereas the speakers for my stereo I still use today, made in the same era have rubber surrounds for the cone that is still intact and flexible despite after its 55 years, believe it or not.
@@draxoronxztgs1212 Yeah I've witnessed that too with new rubber belts that you just don't know to what standards they are made. Some barely last another 5 years.
Holy crap, I JUST saw one of these exact units at my local thrift store yesterday! If I'd known you would talk about it I absolutely would have grabbed it!
Also, I passed it by because it definitely just looked like a normal 8-Track player... despite it still having the original stickers on the front saying it plays cassettes and 8-Tracks!
Wow-never seen a machine like that before !! I learn a new thing everyday-thank you so much for featuring it on your channel !!
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Hola: in Argentina 8-tracks only existed in a few expensive local cars as an extra. I have never seen an 8-track outside a car, here cassetes were the norm. The video and mechanism are amazing. Gracias.
FWIW: My first stereo, a birthday present from my parents in the latter 1970s, had a turntable, AM/FM radio, and 8-track player. There were also portable 8-track players around. I never owned one, but saw them being sold quite a bit.
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@@Allan_aka_RocKITEman wonderful. My first stereo was a tube very late 50's and were most expensive in my land.
I have never seen an 8track. In Europe, from the early 70s compact cassettes were the consumer recording format of choice and gradually increased in popularity , even though in the beginning the quality wasn't so great and most machines were mono. I've only learnt about 8track on the internet, according to which there were some devices in cars here in Europe.
@@xaverlustig3581 8 tracks were common in the U.K. but really started going out of fashion by the mid 1970s. All the late 1960s coaches I went to school on had Radiomobile 8 track players.
@@xaverlustig3581Philips having a chokehold on the European markets had something to do with that I’m sure. I have quite a few Dutch/French/UK/Italian 8-track cartridges, but they only make it to thrift stores once every few years in the Netherlands. It was never the success it became in the US, and I’m sure it’s because 8-track was a US innovation and cassette a European.
I think my favorite part of these types of videos you do is all of the offbeat music you use to demonstrate things. Thanks for everything you do, you’ve been consistently awesome for years.
I’ll always lament the loss of big throw-style switches on consumer electronics. To me, nothing feels quite like the feel of a big mechanical switch. *Ka-thunk!*
I have little knowledge in electronics circuitry, but i found this interesting and made sense. It's amazing that this player works so well! Thanks for sharing.
I got a version of this stereo from goodwill when I was a teen about 25 years ago. Mine had the turntable built into the top. I had it for a couple years before I realized it could play cassettes! If they'd just put a plus instead of a dash, they probably would've sold a ton of these! I still have mine because that feature is so cool and unique. Unfortunately it's been in a storage unit for so long it probably doesn't work anymore.
The engineering marvel in the 1970s of making a hybrid cassette and 8 track player is amazing! That would be like making a VCR that plays either a VHS and Betamax tape, that would’ve kind of changed the video format war, both formats would’ve coexisted!
It didn't work for HD-DVD and Blu-ray. Cross-format players existed. Anyway, I'm not impressed until I see a combo CD / record player. ;-) (and yes I know there were CD changer / turntable combos)
@@nickwallette6201 I think there was a rare cross format HD DVD and Blu Ray player came out at the end of the format war, but it was the same physical disc size which made it easier to engineer compared to two different analog tape formats! The CD and vinyl record are completely different technologies, digital and analog respectively!
@@Markimark151 Yes, I'm aware. The CD/vinyl bit was tongue-in-cheek, obviously. The real point being, the technical ability or lack thereof to play two formats has never been the concern. It's a logistics and licensing problem. Nobody is satisfied with VHS *and* Beta being simultaneously available. JVC and Sony want their market dominance, the product OEMs want lower licensing costs (and therefore, not having to pay two license holders for the right to design/use mechanisms to play their formats), and the content producers don't want to deal with double inventory. So alliances get made, everyone backs their horse, and eventually somebody loses. That's just the natural order of things. Very rarely do two competing standards get to survive, side-by-side. DVD+R and DVD-R being the one example I can readily think of, and a big part of that was how it was never a distribution format, just a recordable one.
@@nickwallette6201 Technology connection did a review on a hybrid CD/Vinyl turntable! That’s a cool system! But it would be neat if they made a hybrid VHS and Beta VCR, because there were lots of tape recordings during the height of the format war, and certain movies and shows were on different formats! The DVD-R and DVD+R was mostly for disc recording, and weren’t much different, it was just issues with standard video formatting. Both formats settled in just few years!
OMG, i never thought i would ever see one of these again. Been looking online for decades for this system. Which is coming from a 45 year old memory. I have only seen 1 of these in my life. One of my dad's best friends had one of these stereos. And i was just fascinated by it. Guessing i mustve been 2 or 3 when i first saw it. And the fact that it could play both was what really got me interested in mechanics, i guess. It sounds kinda strange, but this must've felt like it came from the future to me or something. And i can't believe I'm watching a video on it now. I dont know how rare this is, but to me it seems like a White Whale to me. Just because it takes me back to seeing it as a kid. Thank you very much.
Oh, wow, I remember this model! I'd totally forgotten about it. Now all I need to do is remember if I saw it in person in a stereo store (or similar), or in a catalog. Thanks!
Very cool, you come up with the darnedest contraptions to review. Personally I had less trouble with 8-track than I did with cassettes back in the '70s, at least in cars. Then again we were usually loaded so there's that.
Eight tracks were very much an American thing. I don't think i ever saw one in the 1970s or 80s, growing up Europe and Australasia. Until this day I've only seen a handful of 8 track cartridges, these days they're something that collectors seen to like. That's a cleverly design device.
For a Soundesign, I’m really surprised. Not just by the combo 8 track and cassette tape abilities, but as you pointed out, the build quality seems unusually decent. I’ve never been too interested in 8-tracks, but this would be great for someone who enjoys both formats but wants just one device to play them both.
Wow.. and they said it couldn't be done eh? Props to Soundesign. Not a company I would have expected to do something like that. Basically the 70's and 80's version of Crosley in my opinion. Thanks for these videos! You're always finding this weird stuff. I love it! Oh, btw.. I'm one of the guys who helped on the AM C- QUAM video posted on Shango's channel. That was an extremely fun project. If that radio was to end up anywhere, it landed in the perfect place as our engineer (Greg from Motorola) actually knew they guy who prototyped it. He was absolutely honored to get an opportunity to delve into that and explain some broadcast engineering knowledge to the masses. I hope to see some followup on that one of a kind radio. It sure has gotten a LOT of miles on it during the last year. Lol.
That's a cool system. Even for Soundesign. Never knew that type of mechanism existed. Glad you shared it. Back in the day, I do remember cassette to 8 track adapters being made. So with that you could play cassettes in a standard 8 track player. I believed that a lot of people bought them to play cassettes in their 8 track car head units of the day.
Too bad, there was never a similar model of this stereo and multi formatted 8-track/cassette combo with the “Record” feature where you can record 8-track tapes and record cassette tapes.
I have owned hundreds of stereo systems over the years some really cheap ones, and some really expensive ones, and dozens of soundesigns when i was younger, and never found anything like this. Way cool!!
I like it. They didn't over complicate the mechanism (which is especially evident in that there was no repair required). It just works. Someone was wearing their thinking cap at Sound Design.
This was the stereo I had in my room as a child growing up. It was my mom and dad's old unit that they passed along to me. I never knew it could play cassettes, though. I thought it only played 8-tracks. Who would have guessed?!
More amazing obscure consumer audio products. This is the only channel on TH-cam that has such items. This would have been something my mom would have loved to have. She was an 8 Track user because of the player in her car. She also had one in the house connected to the console stereo. But later when cassettes became more popular, a unit like this would have be very useful! Thanks again for showing what was possible.
I am impressed with that design! That AM sounds very good. I had a similar Soundesign in '78 (with 8-track recorder, no cassette deck) and it was a workhorse. The linear volume and tone controls got 'scratchy' from build-up but a little RadioShack tuner cleaner fixed them.
Radio shack sold a car player unit that also took 8 tracks and cassettes in the same slot. Its pretty cool i must say. The cassette player would lift into place.
Sometime from 1980 to 1982, I purchased a tape player for my car at a _garage sale._ I was attending a school of the time, so I had limited $$$. That player took BOTH _Cassettes_ AND _8-Tracks_ in the same slot. It eventually quit working and I later threw it away. I *WISH* I had kept it, for the novelty if nothing else. I do not remember what brand it was.
I’ve never seen anything like this before. A mechanism like that would have been right at home in one of those dual cassette decks with this mechanism used for the playback side.
My parents (born in 1962/1943) hated the 8-track even when they were relevant. They warped and loss a lot of their audio quality relatively quick but the main problem they had was that songs would often get, *_CLICK,_* split up and rearranged so that they could fit on a cart. A song you like would be split over two programs and the track order could be different.
And to add insult to injury, they'd often fade the song out in preparation for the program change, then fade back in once it had been accomplished. Even as a kid I thought that was the lamest thing ever
Staar S.A., Once was one of the many Belgian Radio and Hi-Fi equipment before it's been dismantled in the 50's after the deceasing of the founder. Théo Staar then keep the legacy of a succesful company and concentrated in Audio Equipment, especially in Audio-Tape Technologies where they made especially the ones for the Automotive sector (Almost all auto-radios have their own technologies) and the company existed until 2006 where the company went extinct anonymously. Really few infos are left of their Auto-Tape studies and mechanism, they runned mostly in a closed system (family business)
What a fascinating device! Seems really well made and well engineered for a budget brand. 8-track was never really popular here in the UK so we'd never have seen innovations like this. Thanks so much for sharing!
You find the neatest, niftiest stuff.👍👍 In reading the comments there are folks that also have one of these or grew up with one in their house. I've been using audio tech for 70 years and never knew such a player existed. Thanks for showing how it works. My favorite systems from this era are the 4-in-1 compact systems: AM-FM, record changer, cassette recorder and 8-track recorder. Realistic, Zenith, Sanyo, Emerson, SoundDesign, Magnavox and others all had 4-in-1 models. If you have one it would be great to see a demo.
I got my driver's license when I turned 16 at the beginning of 1970. I got my first car about six months later. All my friends had 8-track decks in their cars, but I hated 8-track and ended up with an auto-reverse Sony TC-30. And I recorded all my tapes at a friend's house with his Radio Shack, and then Advent cassette deck.
Wow factor for a Soundesign !!! Thanks for sharing - the Tape deck itself ends up being very robust and probably error free in general when everything is clean and working properly. Looks solid with that invention they came up with in Belgium.
Interestingly this machine does share a few quirks with the Akai X-2000SD which plays both cassette and 8 track as well as open reels, in that machine the cassette player loads in the same orientation but when you close the cover on the slot, the cassette drops down into that mechanism but also offers rewind to the cassette, the reel to reel and 8 track share the same capstan with the cassette using a very long belt off the main capstan to the one on the cassette player so there are also 2 capstans but using only one motor. I have taken the Akai X-2000SD apart and had to rebuild it extensively! The cassette mechanism on that is very reminiscent of the one your machine.. not much the same of course but the closest thing ive seen to it thus far! Thanks for sharing
Weird! I was JUST staring at a unit similar to the first example (the standard cassette component with a seperate 8-track slot on the lower right), in the background of a TV sitcom... It's sort of visible next to Darlene if you image search: "Roseanne season 6 episode16" 🧐🤷♂️
Nice video and device! Not only the heads are switched, Sb3 and Sb4 in the schematic ( 12:23 ) show a change in the feedback network between cassette and 8-track.
In 1980 I was given a Western Auto AM/FM stereo, 8Track, and turntable, that my aunt received for Xmas 1972. I took off small metal name plate and under was Soundesign. Small system lasted me until 1990 until my mom gave it away, only replaced the needle once. Seen a lot of Sounddesign on game shows especially "Let's Make A Deal" Don't forget the 8Track cassette converter. Never seen one worth it's price
Such a neat device, certainly ahead of its time, and also with a very good sound and built quality. Awesome video, one more time I'm delighted with it ♥
That is a real priceless treasure there. I didn't have many 8-tracks when I was younger, but I sure would've loved this unit to play both 8-tracks and cassettes back when neither were as popular with me than the industry would've liked.
My formative years were from the mid-sixties through the 1970s. I always had a cassette deck during the seventies though we thought them inferior to reel to reel which I also had. Admittedly, I used the deck for mostly recording, so your point that the combined SoundDesign could not record was probably the case. I rarely bought pre-recorded tapes mostly because LPs were the thing to have then and I lived in an apartment next to a midwest regional early country-rock band who wanted to use my Sony reel deck which had sound on sound to test their songs which gave us the ability to overdub, etc. 8 track in my area were mostly found in automobiles by the early 70s. Interesting piece - thanks.
Soundesign was the king of cheap consumer electronics in the 1960s and '70s, and were featured prominently in department and discount stores. I had several of their products and reveled in their tackiness. Wikipedia laughingly refers to the brand as having comprised of "high-end audio components". But they got the job done super cheap and that was all that really mattered-- especially if you were in junior or senior high school.
A very interesting mechanism. As is mentioned, it doesn't seem all that suited to home use though, which makes me wonder if it was initially intended to be used as an in car player rather than part of a home hi-fi... It would make sense in that context; drivers who already own a number of 8-track cartridges could transition to compact cassette without having to chuck away their collection...
I never used 8-track. I still use cassettes in 2024 though. New and old. I have a Dolly Parton cassette from 1975. It still works excellent. Cassettes don't seem to ever die.
@12:27: actually the de-emphasis also gets switched, not only the heads. They did this properly. You can see Sb1 and Sb2 for switching the head, while Sb3 and 4 switch between two different RC networks.
What a fascinating device! Thank you for demonstrating it. Speaking of weird devices, I've always wondered if there was a tape-to-AM-radio converter. I've seen FM converters, mounted under the dash in old cars, that plug in the AM radio's antenna socket, and allow you to listen to FM on a spot on the AM dial. Has anyone ever seen a tape version of the same idea?
This true Japanese quality system with that ingenuous mechanism that you might think was trying to do too much to be reliable, yet, in this unit at least, is as rock solid as to beat so many mechs, from that era or later, that played one format only... Being a whole system on top of that, not just a deck, and one that still works perfectly fine in all other respects, too. Well, that 125 buck list price is quite fair, isn't it? Electronics in general were way more costly back then, and yet we're talking 670 present-day dollars. And you might have gotten this for even less with discounts etc. Call me impressed.
This is an amazing piece of electronics. Seems like a workable design with quality. My dad had an old realistic changer turntable/FM stereo in the living room, that I pretty much listened to all the time from childhood to somewhere in my teens. Sadly no tape players of any kind. I was buying 45s and LPs until most music only was sold in my area on cassette later in the mid 80s when I got a huge Panasonic boombox with a neat LED bar graph, huge tuning dial, and auto seek cassette (not auto reverse). Even had a tape counter. I think it was 79.99 at Wilson’s (sorta like service merchandise) back in the day. Loved that.
Very cool device i have only ever seen adaptors ,that go in the 8 track slot that allow you to play cassettes and then you have what looks like a cassette deck hanging out of the 8 track slot .
Amazing! They sure built their tech well back in 1976; not a single broken belt, cog or brittle plastic. There were DV/VHS players of course and DVD/LaserDisc players too and the latter shared a common drawer mechanism. Where's my DCC/Minidisc player though? I suspect a Beta/VHS machine would need 3-4 head drums and a couple pairs of audio/tracking heads as well as the mechanism to play at varying speeds, probably 5-6 different speeds by the mid 80s; that's a heck of a player.
What a cool mechanism! I've never seen something like that before. I'm sure some people wouldn't have wanted a cassette player that looks like an 8 track player though, but it's pretty cool.
Hi, @VWestlife You are wrong about two points: 1) 10:55 Both flywheels rotate in the *same* direction (as is visible directly upon ejecting the cassette, when they spin down). Only the capstan shafts touch the tape(s) at opposite sides! 8-track: coating side (i.e. from up front) - cassette tape: support side (i.e. from behind), which makes both tapes run in opposite directions as supposed. 2) 12:13 It *does* change the equalization according to both formats - see switches "Sb3" / "Sb4" directly behind the playback amp - these are the EQ circuits. Greetings :3
Remarkable. Not seen anything as over-engineered as that since Techmoan showed us the bizarre rollercoaster cassette loading mechanism a few years ago. These engineers should have been at NASA!
Very cool video, and awesome player! I was trying to determine what actually triggers the cassette mechanism to slide up. I feel like it would definitely be related to the sizing of the tape inserted. Especially when I look at the shot at 10:00 , it almost appears like there's a certain sub-slot in the metal frame that follows the shape of the cassette tape width-wise. Initially I thought "Oh, so cassettes are wider than 8-track tapes?". But when I put one of my cassette tapes ontop of an 8-track tape (with the tape portion of both facing the same direction), their widths were actually identical. Interesting...
My earliest stereo as an impoverished kid was 8-track and I look back on its crapitude with less than fond memories. Never the less, after watching this I'm intrigued and may very well acquire one to ironically sit next to my Revox and Nakamichi units just for the feels. Thx, a great vid!
Wow...First, I saw Al Stewart on the Year of the Cat tour so your tapes were like a flashback. Second, I am an avid audio nut since the age of 12 and I never knew of this dual-tape transport. Kind of makes you think anything is possible. Oh yeah...The Bennett Blue Book catalog! We used to order stuff from that company and I always loved that hardbound catalog they mailed out! BTW, I'm 63 now. But, I digress, Soundesign was a "cheap drug-store" brand of audio stuff so all the audio magazines I read while growing up never mentioned the brand. That said, there's not hardly any plastic in the transport. It looks to be all stamped metal, cast metal, and brass. No wonder it still works! In closing, I'm amazed that the transport achieves something quite complicated with relative simplicity. This might never get the best out of either tape format, but it wins hands down on engineering the impossible.
The design of the mechanism is a thing of beauty.
It sure is a sound design
@@bradfordaudio Oh dear. 😢
@@bradfordaudio Hear hear!
*Correction:* As several viewers pointed out, the circuitry does switch between different equalizations for 8-track and cassette playback. And the idler wheel and smaller flywheel do change the speed for playing cassettes, but not the direction of rotation; instead, that's accomplished by the 8-track and cassette capstans being on opposite sides of the tape. (Also, upon closer inspection I found a 1980 date code on the speakers.)
As I was watching the video I thought "Same eq stage for both? It's not going to do the best job for either". I was going to comment upon that, too. I'm glad you found that out.
@@BilisNegraTHANK YOU SIR MASTER ENGINEER SIR! maybe next time you can make the video instead!
What you had to do then you had to have a separate cassette player to record your 8 tracks from the 8 track stereo to the cassette recorder player.
@@ka2rwp I’ve killed for less then this offensive remark. Pray no one tracks you down by your IP address. Always pray towards Mecca.
13:00 spot on
A 47-year-old Japanese device it still works! Who would have thought! I appreciate all the work that went into making this video so that we could enjoy it! Thank you!
To be fair my PlayStation 2 AND 3 were both replaced multiple times under warranty and again out of the 1 year warranty…. They’re Japanese products. Quality is time subjective it seems.
What do you mean Doc? All the best stuff is made in Japan.
@@AcornElectron I wasn't implying that Japanese products are necessarily better (although generally they are). I was just simply marveling at the fact that the 8 track /cassette player still works after 47 years and giving VWestlife a compliment for the hard work he put in to making this video. And while any device from any country could fail the fact is I still have 3 Sony carousel CD players and one Sony CD player /recorder, 5 mini disc decks and over 40 portable Sony mini disc players and recorders that still function just fine. Some of these are more than 30 years old. Not to mention several portable CD players well as as my Sony TC-WE-305 cassette deck. All still working fantastic. I hate to keep editing this comment and harping on this subject but I forgot to mention that I also have a working PlayStation 2 in my garage. And last but not least let's not forget my wife's Toyota Camry with 273,000 mi on it!
That is
'Exactly' why it love 8-tracks.
It's because they 'should' have stopped working 'decades' ago !
@@AcornElectronhis looks like a Matsushita Electric product. Most of my Panasonic stuff is still working. Soundesign is a product that had OEMs. So that Soundesign might be built by a different manufacturer and outsourced.
I had a similar Soundesign system in my bedroom when I was a kid that my Dad bought from a yard sale. The one I had also had a turn table at the top. I had it for several years and I knew it played 8-Tracks, but you can imagine my surprise when I was messing around with it one day and discovered that it could play cassettes! I was shocked!
Security you believed about magic.
Saludos from Argentina
Side note: Player equalization for cassette and 8-track changes using the same switch that controls the heads. On the schematic diagram south-west of the pre-amp IC the switch changes a network of resistors and capacitors which controls equalization in the feedback loop.
Great video as usual thanks.
At 12:16 his pencil is just pointing at the separate EQ networks while he's saying there is no other switchover but just the heads. Upppsy 🤭
This mechanism is the definition of over engineering, especially the Fast-Forward part of it, and I can't help but be amazed to know that such thing once made its way to a budget device. Thanks for the video
latching fast forward like that was common on many 'cheap' car radio cassette players and the cassette players in those 'fake' 'vintage' radios, in those it also doubled as eject, if you pushed it fully in hard
@andygozzo72 and cheap Cassette Walkmans too; member Dixons.
@@LapisandHamtarolover nope, never seen that type mechanism in them, the ff/eject lever would stick out too much on a walkman type thing once tape is inserted, they usually have a separate ff button, if one at all
What fascinating content, who knew? I certainly didn't , great video - between you and Techmoan , the pair of you always manage to pull the rare, extraordinary and fascinating consumer electronic products from somewhere, brilliant.
Exactly. These guys find the coolest stuff we've never heard of. I don't know how they do it. Lol. Love it!
I love the frequency graph on the front of those speakers, I'd like to see that more often these days tbh.
What a wonderful machine. Basically, it's a full-fledged stereo system! Cassette and 8-track player, two band radio and an amplifier in one case! Intricate mechanism too. Too bad it didn't take off in big production numbers.
you can even hook up your *_MP3 DVD_* player to it 😂
@@aperson6955 Or a turntable with a built in pre-amp. Or with external pre-amp. Basically, you can connect anything, that outputs signal around 250 mV. It's a wonderful thing, when you want your system to take less space.
I think this does not record. At least the write protection holes are visible.
That is amazing! Such a cool and well built mechanism. End of the 70s was peak build quality home audio equipment, but still impressive that even Soundesign churned out something lasting. How different from just a few years later where most of these mechanisms turned into plastic rubbish. To be fair, this Soundesign must have been stored properly to still have the rubber parts work as well as they do.
Many manufacturers got the rubber parts from different dealers back then that some made parts that would decay faster than others, and those who made rubber parts that was literally immune to age.
I've had equipments from the 60's where the rubber parts had turned into tar before that equipment was 25 years old (repairing it in the 90's), whereas the speakers for my stereo I still use today, made in the same era have rubber surrounds for the cone that is still intact and flexible despite after its 55 years, believe it or not.
@@draxoronxztgs1212 Yeah I've witnessed that too with new rubber belts that you just don't know to what standards they are made. Some barely last another 5 years.
My favorite most underrated channel, which reminds me to start rewatching your old videos again
Holy crap, I JUST saw one of these exact units at my local thrift store yesterday! If I'd known you would talk about it I absolutely would have grabbed it!
Also, I passed it by because it definitely just looked like a normal 8-Track player... despite it still having the original stickers on the front saying it plays cassettes and 8-Tracks!
Wow-never seen a machine like that before !!
I learn a new thing everyday-thank you so much for featuring it on your channel !!
Hola: in Argentina 8-tracks only existed in a few expensive local cars as an extra. I have never seen an 8-track outside a car, here cassetes were the norm. The video and mechanism are amazing. Gracias.
FWIW: My first stereo, a birthday present from my parents in the latter 1970s, had a turntable, AM/FM radio, and 8-track player.
There were also portable 8-track players around. I never owned one, but saw them being sold quite a bit.
@@Allan_aka_RocKITEman wonderful. My first stereo was a tube very late 50's and were most expensive in my land.
I have never seen an 8track. In Europe, from the early 70s compact cassettes were the consumer recording format of choice and gradually increased in popularity , even though in the beginning the quality wasn't so great and most machines were mono. I've only learnt about 8track on the internet, according to which there were some devices in cars here in Europe.
@@xaverlustig3581 8 tracks were common in the U.K. but really started going out of fashion by the mid 1970s. All the late 1960s coaches I went to school on had Radiomobile 8 track players.
@@xaverlustig3581Philips having a chokehold on the European markets had something to do with that I’m sure. I have quite a few Dutch/French/UK/Italian 8-track cartridges, but they only make it to thrift stores once every few years in the Netherlands. It was never the success it became in the US, and I’m sure it’s because 8-track was a US innovation and cassette a European.
I think my favorite part of these types of videos you do is all of the offbeat music you use to demonstrate things. Thanks for everything you do, you’ve been consistently awesome for years.
I’ll always lament the loss of big throw-style switches on consumer electronics. To me, nothing feels quite like the feel of a big mechanical switch. *Ka-thunk!*
I have little knowledge in electronics circuitry, but i found this interesting and made sense. It's amazing that this player works so well! Thanks for sharing.
I got a version of this stereo from goodwill when I was a teen about 25 years ago. Mine had the turntable built into the top. I had it for a couple years before I realized it could play cassettes! If they'd just put a plus instead of a dash, they probably would've sold a ton of these! I still have mine because that feature is so cool and unique. Unfortunately it's been in a storage unit for so long it probably doesn't work anymore.
The engineering marvel in the 1970s of making a hybrid cassette and 8 track player is amazing! That would be like making a VCR that plays either a VHS and Betamax tape, that would’ve kind of changed the video format war, both formats would’ve coexisted!
It didn't work for HD-DVD and Blu-ray. Cross-format players existed.
Anyway, I'm not impressed until I see a combo CD / record player. ;-) (and yes I know there were CD changer / turntable combos)
@@nickwallette6201 I think there was a rare cross format HD DVD and Blu Ray player came out at the end of the format war, but it was the same physical disc size which made it easier to engineer compared to two different analog tape formats! The CD and vinyl record are completely different technologies, digital and analog respectively!
@@Markimark151 Yes, I'm aware. The CD/vinyl bit was tongue-in-cheek, obviously.
The real point being, the technical ability or lack thereof to play two formats has never been the concern. It's a logistics and licensing problem. Nobody is satisfied with VHS *and* Beta being simultaneously available. JVC and Sony want their market dominance, the product OEMs want lower licensing costs (and therefore, not having to pay two license holders for the right to design/use mechanisms to play their formats), and the content producers don't want to deal with double inventory. So alliances get made, everyone backs their horse, and eventually somebody loses.
That's just the natural order of things. Very rarely do two competing standards get to survive, side-by-side. DVD+R and DVD-R being the one example I can readily think of, and a big part of that was how it was never a distribution format, just a recordable one.
@@nickwallette6201 Technology connection did a review on a hybrid CD/Vinyl turntable! That’s a cool system! But it would be neat if they made a hybrid VHS and Beta VCR, because there were lots of tape recordings during the height of the format war, and certain movies and shows were on different formats! The DVD-R and DVD+R was mostly for disc recording, and weren’t much different, it was just issues with standard video formatting. Both formats settled in just few years!
@@nickwallette6201 Is the Fisher DAC-145 (as seen on Technology Connections) close enough? It uses the same platter as the CD changer and turntable.
Wow, just when I thought I'd seen it all! This is incredible. Thank you for all the effort you put into showing it to us!
OMG, i never thought i would ever see one of these again. Been looking online for decades for this system. Which is coming from a 45 year old memory. I have only seen 1 of these in my life. One of my dad's best friends had one of these stereos. And i was just fascinated by it. Guessing i mustve been 2 or 3 when i first saw it. And the fact that it could play both was what really got me interested in mechanics, i guess. It sounds kinda strange, but this must've felt like it came from the future to me or something. And i can't believe I'm watching a video on it now. I dont know how rare this is, but to me it seems like a White Whale to me. Just because it takes me back to seeing it as a kid. Thank you very much.
Oh, wow, I remember this model! I'd totally forgotten about it. Now all I need to do is remember if I saw it in person in a stereo store (or similar), or in a catalog.
Thanks!
Very cool, you come up with the darnedest contraptions to review. Personally I had less trouble with 8-track than I did with cassettes back in the '70s, at least in cars. Then again we were usually loaded so there's that.
Eight tracks were very much an American thing. I don't think i ever saw one in the 1970s or 80s, growing up Europe and Australasia. Until this day I've only seen a handful of 8 track cartridges, these days they're something that collectors seen to like.
That's a cleverly design device.
Absolutely brilliant! Complex and yet as simple as can be.
That is a really neat device. I'm so glad you shared it with us.
WOW! A friend of my mom’s had this stereo in the early 80’s. Never saw one like it before or since. Glad to see a video on it!
For a Soundesign, I’m really surprised. Not just by the combo 8 track and cassette tape abilities, but as you pointed out, the build quality seems unusually decent.
I’ve never been too interested in 8-tracks, but this would be great for someone who enjoys both formats but wants just one device to play them both.
Wow.. and they said it couldn't be done eh? Props to Soundesign. Not a company I would have expected to do something like that. Basically the 70's and 80's version of Crosley in my opinion. Thanks for these videos! You're always finding this weird stuff. I love it! Oh, btw.. I'm one of the guys who helped on the AM C- QUAM video posted on Shango's channel. That was an extremely fun project. If that radio was to end up anywhere, it landed in the perfect place as our engineer (Greg from Motorola) actually knew they guy who prototyped it. He was absolutely honored to get an opportunity to delve into that and explain some broadcast engineering knowledge to the masses. I hope to see some followup on that one of a kind radio. It sure has gotten a LOT of miles on it during the last year. Lol.
That's a cool system. Even for Soundesign. Never knew that type of mechanism existed. Glad you shared it. Back in the day, I do remember cassette to 8 track adapters being made. So with that you could play cassettes in a standard 8 track player. I believed that a lot of people bought them to play cassettes in their 8 track car head units of the day.
Too bad, there was never a similar model of this stereo and multi formatted 8-track/cassette combo with the “Record” feature where you can record 8-track tapes and record cassette tapes.
02:32 ...and at this point I was thinking here comes a sponsorship, but thankfully NO. I applaud you...!
My parents still have that same unit! Still works! This vid brings back some childhood memories!
Glad you posted, recent wicked depression lifted for 15 minutes. Thanks.
I have owned hundreds of stereo systems over the years some really cheap ones, and some really expensive ones, and dozens of soundesigns when i was younger, and never found anything like this. Way cool!!
I must admit, I'm impressed. Never saw anything like that before.
I like it. They didn't over complicate the mechanism (which is especially evident in that there was no repair required). It just works. Someone was wearing their thinking cap at Sound Design.
This was the stereo I had in my room as a child growing up. It was my mom and dad's old unit that they passed along to me. I never knew it could play cassettes, though. I thought it only played 8-tracks. Who would have guessed?!
Even owning it you did not guess? I know, you were a child, still, Kevin is so right about why this flopped. What a shame.
Well... It's kinda written on it... User guide?
More amazing obscure consumer audio products. This is the only channel on TH-cam that has such items. This would have been something my mom would have loved to have. She was an 8 Track user because of the player in her car. She also had one in the house connected to the console stereo. But later when cassettes became more popular, a unit like this would have be very useful! Thanks again for showing what was possible.
Wow, awesome machine! And great presentation! I apprecieate you took it apart and did close-up shots of that mechanism
I am impressed with that design! That AM sounds very good. I had a similar Soundesign in '78 (with 8-track recorder, no cassette deck) and it was a workhorse. The linear volume and tone controls got 'scratchy' from build-up but a little RadioShack tuner cleaner fixed them.
Very interesting to see how this works. Also I would never have guessed something like this even existed. Thanks for bringing this to my attention!
Radio shack sold a car player unit that also took 8 tracks and cassettes in the same slot. Its pretty cool i must say. The cassette player would lift into place.
Sometime from 1980 to 1982, I purchased a tape player for my car at a _garage sale._ I was attending a school of the time, so I had limited $$$.
That player took BOTH _Cassettes_ AND _8-Tracks_ in the same slot. It eventually quit working and I later threw it away. I *WISH* I had kept it, for the novelty if nothing else.
I do not remember what brand it was.
I wonder if it used the same mechanism 🤔
It was fun that with the radio examples the music was actually contemporary to the device. 🙂
I assume vwestlife has his own transmitter and set it to the frequencies he tuned the radio to ✅
I’ve never seen anything like this before. A mechanism like that would have been right at home in one of those dual cassette decks with this mechanism used for the playback side.
I had no idea such a device existed. Amazing stuff! Thanks for this detailed video and for your continously great content! Cheers!
My parents (born in 1962/1943) hated the 8-track even when they were relevant. They warped and loss a lot of their audio quality relatively quick but the main problem they had was that songs would often get, *_CLICK,_* split up and rearranged so that they could fit on a cart. A song you like would be split over two programs and the track order could be different.
And to add insult to injury, they'd often fade the song out in preparation for the program change, then fade back in once it had been accomplished. Even as a kid I thought that was the lamest thing ever
Staar S.A., Once was one of the many Belgian Radio and Hi-Fi equipment before it's been dismantled in the 50's after the deceasing of the founder. Théo Staar then keep the legacy of a succesful company and concentrated in Audio Equipment, especially in Audio-Tape Technologies where they made especially the ones for the Automotive sector (Almost all auto-radios have their own technologies) and the company existed until 2006 where the company went extinct anonymously.
Really few infos are left of their Auto-Tape studies and mechanism, they runned mostly in a closed system (family business)
I have a Sanyo boombox from 1985 which has that same “made under licence from Staar” printed on the back.
Very cool, truly a unique audio sound quality. Sounds as good as the boom boxes of the 80s.
Radio Shack sold the same double deck mechanism in an under-dash car stereo (model 12-1837 on page 73 of their 1978 catalog).
What a fascinating device! Seems really well made and well engineered for a budget brand. 8-track was never really popular here in the UK so we'd never have seen innovations like this. Thanks so much for sharing!
You find the neatest, niftiest stuff.👍👍 In reading the comments there are folks that also have one of these or grew up with one in their house. I've been using audio tech for 70 years and never knew such a player existed. Thanks for showing how it works. My favorite systems from this era are the 4-in-1 compact systems: AM-FM, record changer, cassette recorder and 8-track recorder. Realistic, Zenith, Sanyo, Emerson, SoundDesign, Magnavox and others all had 4-in-1 models. If you have one it would be great to see a demo.
I got my driver's license when I turned 16 at the beginning of 1970. I got my first car about six months later. All my friends had 8-track decks in their cars, but I hated 8-track and ended up with an auto-reverse Sony TC-30. And I recorded all my tapes at a friend's house with his Radio Shack, and then Advent cassette deck.
Looks like a well built machine, and it sounds good to. I've certainly never seen anything like it, so thank you for showing it to us.
That 8-track Ampex disco tape was recorded on my 8th birthday! Nice overview of this interesting machine, can't be many around in such good condition.
Wow factor for a Soundesign !!! Thanks for sharing - the Tape deck itself ends up being very robust and probably error free in general when everything is clean and working properly. Looks solid with that invention they came up with in Belgium.
Excellent presentation, remarkable BOM and assembly. "When Soundesign didn't suck."
Now that is something amazing! Thank you for posting this!
14:07 Oh cool, we had some of those Certron 8-track tapes
Interestingly this machine does share a few quirks with the Akai X-2000SD which plays both cassette and 8 track as well as open reels, in that machine the cassette player loads in the same orientation but when you close the cover on the slot, the cassette drops down into that mechanism but also offers rewind to the cassette, the reel to reel and 8 track share the same capstan with the cassette using a very long belt off the main capstan to the one on the cassette player so there are also 2 capstans but using only one motor. I have taken the Akai X-2000SD apart and had to rebuild it extensively! The cassette mechanism on that is very reminiscent of the one your machine.. not much the same of course but the closest thing ive seen to it thus far! Thanks for sharing
Thank you for sharing too! Knew about the dual reel to reel / 8 track players. Did not regarding reel to reel + 8 track + cassette!
Weird! I was JUST staring at a unit similar to the first example (the standard cassette component with a seperate 8-track slot on the lower right), in the background of a TV sitcom...
It's sort of visible next to Darlene if you image search: "Roseanne season 6 episode16" 🧐🤷♂️
Nice video and device! Not only the heads are switched, Sb3 and Sb4 in the schematic ( 12:23 ) show a change in the feedback network between cassette and 8-track.
yep, it'd need to alter the equalising and maybe gain
Those old Soundesign speakers are the most early-80s faux Hi-Fi thing ever, and I am _here for it!_ :-D
I had a Realistic stereo I inherited from my grandmother that had all five- cassette, 8 track, AM/FM and Record Player.
In 1980 I was given a Western Auto AM/FM stereo, 8Track, and turntable, that my aunt received for Xmas 1972.
I took off small metal name plate and under was Soundesign. Small system lasted me until 1990 until my mom gave it away, only replaced the needle once.
Seen a lot of Sounddesign on game shows especially "Let's Make A Deal"
Don't forget the 8Track cassette converter. Never seen one worth it's price
What an incredible machine! Thanks for presenting one!
I’m always amazed with whatcha find. What a neat mechanism, I think this would’ve been a hit with every manufacturer.
Such a neat device, certainly ahead of its time, and also with a very good sound and built quality. Awesome video, one more time I'm delighted with it ♥
Soundesign was/is so under-rated IMO
Yeah I had some nice 70s headphones from Soundesign. Volume controls on each ear cup and they sounded quite good.
i have an underdash car stereo from 1979 with that mechanism, still works fine
btw the mechanism in mine is made by tanashin
That is a real priceless treasure there. I didn't have many 8-tracks when I was younger, but I sure would've loved this unit to play both 8-tracks and cassettes back when neither were as popular with me than the industry would've liked.
Very interesting Kevin never heard about that player even if I know a lot about vintage equipment. Very nice video mate.
My Thursday routine is to watch Oddity Archive on my lunch break, however I saw this video and had to see! I guess OA will have to wait until later!
My formative years were from the mid-sixties through the 1970s. I always had a cassette deck during the seventies though we thought them inferior to reel to reel which I also had. Admittedly, I used the deck for mostly recording, so your point that the combined SoundDesign could not record was probably the case. I rarely bought pre-recorded tapes mostly because LPs were the thing to have then and I lived in an apartment next to a midwest regional early country-rock band who wanted to use my Sony reel deck which had sound on sound to test their songs which gave us the ability to overdub, etc. 8 track in my area were mostly found in automobiles by the early 70s.
Interesting piece - thanks.
Soundesign was the king of cheap consumer electronics in the 1960s and '70s, and were featured prominently in department and discount stores. I had several of their products and reveled in their tackiness. Wikipedia laughingly refers to the brand as having comprised of "high-end audio components". But they got the job done super cheap and that was all that really mattered-- especially if you were in junior or senior high school.
Genius! Shame this mechanism wasn't more popular.
A very interesting mechanism. As is mentioned, it doesn't seem all that suited to home use though, which makes me wonder if it was initially intended to be used as an in car player rather than part of a home hi-fi... It would make sense in that context; drivers who already own a number of 8-track cartridges could transition to compact cassette without having to chuck away their collection...
I thought the same too. It had to be invented with cars in mind 🤔
Always excited for a new vid from you
I never used 8-track. I still use cassettes in 2024 though. New and old. I have a Dolly Parton cassette from 1975. It still works excellent. Cassettes don't seem to ever die.
@12:27: actually the de-emphasis also gets switched, not only the heads. They did this properly. You can see Sb1 and Sb2 for switching the head, while Sb3 and 4 switch between two different RC networks.
What a fascinating device! Thank you for demonstrating it. Speaking of weird devices, I've always wondered if there was a tape-to-AM-radio converter. I've seen FM converters, mounted under the dash in old cars, that plug in the AM radio's antenna socket, and allow you to listen to FM on a spot on the AM dial. Has anyone ever seen a tape version of the same idea?
This true Japanese quality system with that ingenuous mechanism that you might think was trying to do too much to be reliable, yet, in this unit at least, is as rock solid as to beat so many mechs, from that era or later, that played one format only... Being a whole system on top of that, not just a deck, and one that still works perfectly fine in all other respects, too. Well, that 125 buck list price is quite fair, isn't it? Electronics in general were way more costly back then, and yet we're talking 670 present-day dollars. And you might have gotten this for even less with discounts etc. Call me impressed.
This is an amazing piece of electronics. Seems like a workable design with quality. My dad had an old realistic changer turntable/FM stereo in the living room, that I pretty much listened to all the time from childhood to somewhere in my teens. Sadly no tape players of any kind. I was buying 45s and LPs until most music only was sold in my area on cassette later in the mid 80s when I got a huge Panasonic boombox with a neat LED bar graph, huge tuning dial, and auto seek cassette (not auto reverse). Even had a tape counter. I think it was 79.99 at Wilson’s (sorta like service merchandise) back in the day. Loved that.
I use a Yorx 8 track recorder/amplifier/receiver as my main radio. 8 track still works. Thanks for sharing the machine.
Very cool device i have only ever seen adaptors ,that go in the 8 track slot that allow you to play cassettes and then you have what looks like a cassette deck hanging out of the 8 track slot .
Wow. I've never seen a system that plays cassette tapes and 8 track tapes in the same exact slot.
Amazing! They sure built their tech well back in 1976; not a single broken belt, cog or brittle plastic. There were DV/VHS players of course and DVD/LaserDisc players too and the latter shared a common drawer mechanism. Where's my DCC/Minidisc player though? I suspect a Beta/VHS machine would need 3-4 head drums and a couple pairs of audio/tracking heads as well as the mechanism to play at varying speeds, probably 5-6 different speeds by the mid 80s; that's a heck of a player.
What a cool mechanism! I've never seen something like that before. I'm sure some people wouldn't have wanted a cassette player that looks like an 8 track player though, but it's pretty cool.
You own and present such beautiful devices! Love your work. Keep them coming!
Hi, @VWestlife
You are wrong about two points:
1) 10:55 Both flywheels rotate in the *same* direction (as is visible directly upon ejecting the cassette, when they spin down). Only the capstan shafts touch the tape(s) at opposite sides!
8-track: coating side (i.e. from up front) - cassette tape: support side (i.e. from behind), which makes both tapes run in opposite directions as supposed.
2) 12:13 It *does* change the equalization according to both formats - see switches "Sb3" / "Sb4" directly behind the playback amp - these are the EQ circuits.
Greetings :3
Read the correction in the description and pinned comment.
Remarkable. Not seen anything as over-engineered as that since Techmoan showed us the bizarre rollercoaster cassette loading mechanism a few years ago. These engineers should have been at NASA!
I was just playing that Al Stewart album (on LP) yesterday!
The title track Year of the Cat is an amazingly good recording, my go-to for auditioning audio gear.
Very cool video, and awesome player!
I was trying to determine what actually triggers the cassette mechanism to slide up. I feel like it would definitely be related to the sizing of the tape inserted. Especially when I look at the shot at 10:00 , it almost appears like there's a certain sub-slot in the metal frame that follows the shape of the cassette tape width-wise. Initially I thought "Oh, so cassettes are wider than 8-track tapes?". But when I put one of my cassette tapes ontop of an 8-track tape (with the tape portion of both facing the same direction), their widths were actually identical. Interesting...
I noticed it says "IC" and "FET" on the front underneath "AM-FM Stereo Receiver/Cassette-8 Track Player", like using ICs and FETs is a big feature.
This was a great video!
Very interesting piece of design and history. Thank you for covering it! 👍
10:20 was the music this needed to play !!
This dual-format player is groooovy !
My earliest stereo as an impoverished kid was 8-track and I look back on its crapitude with less than fond memories. Never the less, after watching this I'm intrigued and may very well acquire one to ironically sit next to my Revox and Nakamichi units just for the feels. Thx, a great vid!
Wow...First, I saw Al Stewart on the Year of the Cat tour so your tapes were like a flashback. Second, I am an avid audio nut since the age of 12 and I never knew of this dual-tape transport. Kind of makes you think anything is possible. Oh yeah...The Bennett Blue Book catalog! We used to order stuff from that company and I always loved that hardbound catalog they mailed out! BTW, I'm 63 now. But, I digress, Soundesign was a "cheap drug-store" brand of audio stuff so all the audio magazines I read while growing up never mentioned the brand. That said, there's not hardly any plastic in the transport. It looks to be all stamped metal, cast metal, and brass. No wonder it still works! In closing, I'm amazed that the transport achieves something quite complicated with relative simplicity. This might never get the best out of either tape format, but it wins hands down on engineering the impossible.
Wow as interesting as always. Awesome information.