I had a Sony HMK-30 horizontal-style music centre with a ridiculously violent eject system. The door would still be clattering up and down against the cassette as it flew out towards you. The transport buttons themselves had sharp edges and could be painful to press.
@@ConsumerDV Hush. If you don't like videos about obsolete equipment, there's millions of hours of other stuff on TH-cam. Anyway, yeah, the slow-open doors are cute for about ten minutes, but I'd always get impatient with them.
Digital clocks with the flipping-card faces VU meters showing signaling traces Brushed metal finishes giving a sheen These are a few of Mat’s favorite things Experimental Japanese domestics Cassette deck changers with complex mechanics Hi-fi components for opera that sings These are a few of Mat’s favorite things
This is a beautiful machine. The subtle lighting and the mirror effect on the angled, backlit cassette slot are very disco-era. I love a big chunky deck of this period but then I also love the later black fascia stuff too (especially Panasonic / Technics, I'm putting together a retro Matsushita stack for my living room). The Japanese manufacturers were absolutely at the top of their game between the mid-Seventies and the late 1990s and I think we've lost something important and tangible with the move away from physical media and the machines used to play it. Well done on saving this beauty - I suspect the restoration video will be worth the wait :)
I don't own or even collect very much tech, just not really very much _into_ it for personal use. But the videos are so interesting and well done, I watch Every video this guy puts out, I really don't care what he's going to be talking about, I know it's going to entertain me no matter what.
I’m not really looking forward to editing it - there’s a heck of a lot of video to scrub through. It’ll probably be a couple of weeks before I can start on it.
@@Techmoan Much appreciate your slogging through it when you get the chance. I am very interested in watching others solve problems with old tech as much as viewing the end result. I do the same as a hobby which I quite enjoy.
14:25 There's something very reasssuring and comforting in the warm orange glow of bulbs on old hifi equipment. Reminds me of nights spent trying to tune in distant radio stations in a desperate bid to hear something a bit different.
“I recorded around 10 hours of video. I need to edit that down into something snappier.” I almost guarantee that some of us would love the raw version.
I remember seeing his shortened mini disc unwrap upload, pausing that to watch the full 73 minute video, and then coming back and finishing viewing the abridged version as well.
@@DJzSith I almost did that, but stuck with the Long Play version. I have zero reason to buy a MD player or any of the software, but I was riveted for those 73 minutes.
I literally said out loud to myself "and it's got a flip clock too!" right as the music came to a crescendo. That montage checklist is one of the coolest things you have shown. Hans Gruber's reaction truly conveys that feeling tech nerds get with a cool piece of gear. 😄
Thanks Mat for this. My dad's CT-F2121 was used for recording many 'pause button mixes' in the mid 80s - fast choppy edits of electro and hip hop records. That simple pause button with instant stop-start was essential back in the day. The rest of the buttons received some severe mashing but the deck never failed. Wish I still had it!
The pause button on our hi-fi's tape deck eventually broke off (metal fatigue?) for the same reason. One too many n-n-n-n-19 inspired stutter cuts and I had just enough time to notice the button had gone a little 'soft' before it simply fell off.
From 1976 - 1979 I was marketing manager for AIWA UK, highly respected for their cassette decks. I visited the Japanese factories and was involved in highest level discussions regarding future international designs. As you are well aware, for every manufacturer it was normal to introduce new models every year and if there were no new technical features available for incorporation (for example wireless remote control, Dolby C, three heads, metal tape, etc) then the newest models tended to have cosmetic revamps similar to motor cars. Having been involved in a lot of market research in the UK with focus groups, three things stood out: front loading was greatly appreciated by the vast majority, one of the benefits being that you could remove the plastic door to gain access to the heads and pinch wheel for manual cleaning purposes, as well as degaussing the heads; secondly, soft touch piano keys and damped door opening had great tactile value in marketing and sales terms; and thirdly when micro hi-fi arrived in 1978 it established the first truly ‘wow!’ factor amongst consumers. I, myself, loved the AIWA AD-1250 slant cassette deck, which was our greatest seller and established the AIWA name internationally, and therefore appreciate why you like other brands representing a lost genre!
Another amazing video. Riveting. Never saw a 30 degree loader before in my life. When you zoomed out to reveal this thing had a flip clock my reaction was palpable. I’m drooling at the repair video. Feel free to post the full raw 10 hours. The huge minidisc unwrapping was still a highlight of 2020. Thank you for creating and sharing this!
I really love these retro videos. As an '80s born child in India, I'm now realizing how valuable tapes were to listening to music. With CD's and Digital, what we gained in convenience, we lost in patience. Back in the days, we used to more or less listen to the entire album, despite liking only a few songs on the cassette. Gradually, it made sense, why the artist arranged those specific songs in that specific order. Call it repetition or call it an appreciation for art, it's all the same now. At 38, I'm now going back to Vinyls, Tapes and CD's and I find the connection with a solid medium adds so much more value. The artwork, the sleeve, the lyrics on the inside cover. Digital misses out so much on all of this stuff. Don't get me wrong. I love my FLAC's and how solid they sound, but there is something about touching a Vinyl sleeve or a Cassette / CD box cover that is missing while I mouse over and click on my computer to play music.
Whoaa! I'm Fran from Argentina, the owner of a FW-91 Phillips DCC mini chain. I'm really blown away by the Sony deck with Dolby S and what it looked like a Phillips DCC 900 deck. What a pleasure...
When he went through the "favourite things" list, I couldn't see much of a connection between flip digit clocks and cassette decks. When I saw the whole machine facia, I nearly fell off my stool.
These aren't any TH-cam videos. This is surely art. What you're doing here is extremely rare to see in any other TH-cam channel. You are simply born to do this, I guess. Please keep up the amazing job!
@@jeffhughes1318 Sweet! I'd love to have an original Goblin --- but I live in Switzerland and they're too expensive to import. They still make them, but the modern ones look like suck.
07:52 Thank you for crediting me with the invention of the door-held tape loading mechanism! You are the first person to do so, my time and space-transcending genius constantly goes underappreciated.
I love it when Techmoan uploads; it's one of those incredibly interesting and educational shows that gives such a necessary and fulfilling reprieve from the insanity that is basically the rest of TH-cam. Best wishes sir; another fantastic video!
The premise of this video is amazing. As much as I love a video focusing on a single device, covering the patterns of development and features in a category of products, and especially how different technical accomplishments either revolutionised the industry and appealed to customers, or were a commercial failure that didn't make a meaningful difference for the customers. Sometimes incredibly intelligent people are able to make incredible inventions that nobody wants to buy.
When i was young i always called the Pioneer Logo "the broken ohm symbol" ... never saw the tuning fork... Thats actually amazing. BTW : 1250 DM from 1975 are about 1660 Euro / 1860 USD / 1500 GBP today (inflation corrected). Crazy.
Well, given that somewhat upscale HiFi/audiophile DMPs (which I arbitrarily took as today’s casette deck-equivalent) appear to run from about 500€ to 25'000€, averaging at about 2'000-ish, I don’t think that’s all that outrageous… Going by this roundup of tests by one of Germany’s better known and long-established HiFi magazines, at least: www.stereo.de/hifi-test/kategorie/netzwerkspieler
I'm from Germany and my Grandparents like to calculate the price of stuff in Marks by using the 2001 exchange rates of roughly 2 marks for 1 Euro. No grandma, 500€ doesn't equal 1000 Marks in 1990. But to be fair we are from the east, so they never learned what inflation means because prices in the GDR stayed the same from when they were born to 1989.
Brilliant Matt. Great in depth info. Stunning deck with the flip clock. Love the way most of the units display the complete face of the cassette and not just a letterbox view. So much effort and love went into the designs of HiFis in the 70's. Take care. A&J
I loved the illumination on this type of equipment. Nothing better than late night listening in a dark room lit only by the stereo. Especially with a friend!
I was impressed when you unwrapped it and it looked brand new--and at the end we learned it was because you spent a month restoring it. Beautiful machine! There was one more evolution in tape loading: The tapes held by the door, but loaded "upside down" -- with the part that contacts the head on the top.
I'm on board with you there too. I am an electronics experimenter and I have watched him fix things before and admire his persistence and method with his limited knowledge. He does extremely well
That whole transition from “my favourite things” to the unpacking of the tape deck, to the shots of the sections of the deck set to Ode to Joy was beautifully perfect.
@Perverted Alchemist Literally all my midrange modern stuff has a brushed metal front. Yamaha, Denon, Martantz, Pioneer. No idea what you're talking about.
@Perverted Alchemist I am talking about all modern stuff. I have a 4K receiver and it's brushed metal. It's a ridiculously thin piece of aluminum that's been stamped and put over a plastic frame, but it's metal.
@Perverted Alchemist You make no sense. By definition expensive equipment is expensive. And as I said, the stuff has the same brushed metal. Look at Marantz. Look at Accuphase. Mcintosh is glass with brushed metal inserts. If consumer midrange gear has metal fronts today, then audiophile stuff does too.
You're not too far from one million subscribers on here, and I'm afraid I'll miss it when it happens, so I'll go ahead and wish you an early congratulations on one million subscribers, Mat! I've enjoyed watching your channel for about 4 to 5 years now, and your foray into many unusual forms of tech and the machines that operate them never fail to impress me. You're one of the most entertaining creators I've seen on TH-cam in a long time and I enjoy every single video. (Not to mention that you've got an amazing taste in electronics!) You could talk about a can of beans for 20 minutes and I'd still be equally entertained.
Wow, this was just like my first cassette deck which i bought used in the late 70's. It was also a Pioneer in the same design but without the timer clock, apparently the CT-F2121 as i understand from watching your video. It was perfect for "pause button mixing" which i did a lot back in those days before i got my first mixer and set of turntables.
In the '70s, My Dad had a Garrard GC350, basically identical to the Pioneer CT-F2121, with the same angled cassette opening and Dolby B, except it had the eject button separate from the stop, also the door was operated manually. It also featured Cue/Review feature, where you could forward/rewind the tape while it is still in play mode, and hear the music at a lower volume at high speed. I wish I knew what happened to it, these are much rarer than the Pioneer versions, I can only find 2 poor quality photos of it online, and absolutely none for sale for many years.
0:25 I recently just bought a children's music cassette with the same lady on the cover. The title is also "The Sound Of Music" but only the eponymous song is included (no "My Favourite Things" though). The rest are some weird selections of songs with the most peculiar one being the Ghostbusters theme song.
The 30-degree angle setup is so appealing to me. My very first deck ever featured such a loading setup, and I am still in love with it. The CT-50T sure is a beauty! Love the Pioneer decks with the metal lever controls.
I always wondered what the Pioneer logo was meant to represent - I just thought it was a cool-looking symbol, never saw the tuning fork / ohm symbol but once it's been pointed out it's so obvious!
I love my recently restored Dual C939 console cassette deck. It was produced from 1977-79. Four track head and autoreverse. Built like a tank. As always your videos are produced to the highest standards as so incredibly nice to watch 👍👍
BTW: Do you remember these "Braun Atelier C3 Highend Kassettendeck" wich had a drawer coming out? When I was a kid we visited a relative and he had such a machine and I could press the button to make that motorized drawer come out - that blew my socks off :)
The ultimate in automatic cassette machines was of course the Nakamichi auto-reverse mechanism that physically unloaded the cassette, manually turned it around, and then re-inserted it. Magic.
@@albanana683 I remember those from the local HiFi dealer, great stuff! BTW: I have never seen this mechanic: th-cam.com/video/h_jcLRjrGPc/w-d-xo.html . I am just wondering, what else is out there!
Although the equipment doesn't care, the tape can still snap or stretch if jerked around too hard. I would still hit stop when going from fast winding (forward or backward) to playback, so that you don't have what are effectively little flywheels (the spinning tape reels) yanking on tape that just got pinched between capstan and roller. From play to fast wind? No need to hit stop first, the mechanical slop will allow sufficient gap between the two events.
The later decks with solenoid-operated mechanisms protected the tape but were slow to switch modes while listening to the "ka-chunk, thunk" each time. I recall as a kid playing with the piano key style function buttons on a low cost portable; I got it to play at high speed and even backwards once or twice!
Depended on the mechanism. Some didn’t care, some didn’t like it, some had interlocks to prevent it, some were designed to handle it safely (usually by stopping the mechanism before engaging the selected operation automatically). Except for the latter, at least going from rewind to fast forward or play-and vice versa-would always be at least somewhat hard on the tape itself, though.
I absolutely love the levers that you push straight down and then bounce up. I don't even remember if my parents had that kind of deck or if it was my first job working for the school district, but I always loved that design.
@@PowerGlove79 The lovely lovely Ninth always reminds me of A Clockwork Orange (as does Singing in the Rain) so you know I'm probably not from the UK. The movie was banned there for years. So my dear droogs I shall now retire to breakfast for some lomticks of toast and a bit of moloko on me Cheerios. Viddy you all anotherr.
Excellent stuff. Reminds me of the luxurious Pioneer hi-fi system my dad bought after driving us bonkers testing and choosing in the 1970s. A console-style tape deck with the cool little twirly graphic to show the tape was turning, a turntable with S-shaped arm and a huge receiver with a tuning knob you could spin (and as a kid I did spin it a lot!). All shiny metal and wooden end-caps. It seemed like we'd moved up in the world and become very sophisticated. I totally understand where you're coming from. Those days are sadly gone.
7:55 - And thus began the era of less stable tape transports. While the door may be more practical, ditching the pegs meant the tape wasn't as firmly maintained in place as it used to be. High end decks didn't suffer from that, but lower ends decks, especially walkmans? Well, that's an other story.
My grandfather had one of the old CT-9191’s. He gave it to me recently and I fixed it up, it really is a good sounding machine. It got me into pioneer stereos and now I even have two of your RT-707’s. I just wish I had one of those beautiful 909’s
The great thing about your content is it isn’t constrained to the themes or trends of TH-cam. TH-cam is just the platform you put these on, but they could exist independently on say a DVD release or anything outside of the context of TH-cam. Keep it up! I’ve always been curious about those weird cassette decks with the angled tape mechanism.
That is a beautiful machine buddy, when I was a nipper in 70s my mum had a sharp music center, which I grew up with and adored, in the 80s she bought a Pioneer midi system, and that changed everything to me, now 40 years later I saw someone selling the same midi system £40 and much to my fiancee annoyance I bought it anyway from doorstep without a demo. Once home found tape belts shot, and volume knob had earth probes and blasted full volume at a touch of the knob, so I let it go free, I still have the 2 way midi size speakers, they're in excellent condition and sound great, not bass reflex, but decent, dont know what to do with them, love your videos and adore your home setup, I share your love of old hifi and minidiscs and can only dream of owning a powerful system again after moving to Dorset from Essex, thin walls meand my Bose lifestyle 28 theater sits boxed in storage.... you lucky fella
Oh man. I just had a perfect week celebrating the wedding and honeymoon my fiancée and I were supposed to have starting last Saturday before normality blew up. We stayed at my Aunt’s house in the country, relaxed, played music, and just drove home with our cat to the backdrop of a HUGE orange moon low on the horizon, while illegal 4th of July fireworks exploded in front of it, my favorite radio program of early 29th century country music playing all the while. Just when I thought this week couldn’t have been more perfect, (aside from the postponed wedding and all) and as I began to mourn its passing, Techmoan posts a PIONEER hifi component video!! Thank you, and if you’re looking for a good wedding present, next year around this exact time, I’ll have another!
Boomers and Xers can probably attest to this comment. Tech during the 1970's was not cheap. Look up any Radio Shack catalogue from the Seventies as a reminder.
@@krzysztofczarnecki8238 Yup, my receiver, a previous year's Kenwood on clearance, and my ESS bookshelf speakers, each cost somewhat more than about one full month's student rent.
That flip clock on the front is amazing! Congratulations on finding another rare gem. I had a Marantz 5220 briefly so can relate to the slanted loading style. However, the first time I tried to clean the heads on that style deck told me that its days were numbered with me. Ended up with a mid-level Nakamichi and never looked back. Well done, Matt.
I finally managed to track one of these down. The design is very interesting and i cant wait to tear it apart on the bench and sort out how to restore it. Thank you so much for both this history lesson and your tear down and repair attempt.
I'm old enough to remember these classic electronic devices made all in Japan, unfortunately these days most of it is made in china. I owned several different Japanese electronic devices, and let me say that they were 100% BETTER QUALITY then today's throw away Chinese junk. Oh those good old days of proper electronics. -( regards.
I've always loved the looks of the brushed aluminum front panels. I still have all my Pioneer components that I bought in 1976. The top end cassette deck needs serviced, switches going bad, 60w integrated amp. and I believe a PH 150 turntable. I'd had a SX 737 earlier that I'd sold to a friend that I'd love to find another one. I remember the high wattage receivers and amps. being extremely heavy back then. Remember going into the Hi-fi stores in the 70's and being overwhelmed by the number of models, the smell of the new electronics and of coarse having the sales person fire up the systems you were wanting to hear.
Has this ever happened... Mr Tech Moan - "Mrs Tech Moan, shall we turn the lights down?" Mrs TM: "oh... Yes, shall we?" Mr TM : "yes... Now, look how much better those VU meters look!"
Great video! Back in '76 I had a Technics RS-630 US cassette w/the same angled loading area. Loved that deck. In '79 I moved and bought a Pioneer CTF-750 auto reverse deck. Never had need of the timer function. Today I still have over 200 cassettes (mainly TDK) and a Denon DRM-555 deck. All still playable
Great video and I can’t wait for that “repair” video too. When I was a kid me and my cousin used to have a huge ‘music centre’ system, can’t remember make/model, bought it for a few quid from an auction but it had the ability to skip tape tracks etc (I assume it looked for the gaps between tracks). We had it in our “den” that we built in my grandads garden, we also had a pioneer amp and huge KEF speakers (all bought for a few quid at auction), and I built a small fm transmitter 😉 Problem was we only had a few tapes/records and the transmitter probably only reached a few hundred yards at most 🤣 still we had some fun.
If your tape deck didn't have a timer, you might have had to do what I did with my Aiwa deck back in the mid 90s. I had a simple digital appliance timer and plugged the deck into that. There was a digital tuner shortwave radio next to it with multiple timers. The deck would let me put it in auto record mode so as soon as the timer turned on the power, both the radio and the deck came on and the recording began. The deck would auto flip the tape and keep rolling on both sides of a cassette. The radio timer used tuner presets so the whole works would come on, record one program, turn off, turn on again, change stations and recorde again and keep doing that two or three times a night. This was vital since I was working during the day and not able to stay up very late listening to shortwave. I absolutely loved that clever little setup. Only stopped doing that because the shortwave stations I wanted to hear kept changing to frequencies I could not catch with my antenna.
This is a really sharp looking tape deck. I love the angle front loading mechanism, I can't say I've ever seen any like it myself. I'm quite fond of the Pioneer audio gear from around that era. That warm glow from the clock is just perfect!
I love a good flip clock, too. I had a hand-me-down General Electric alarm clock radio with a flip display that I loved until the motor gave out. Being too young to know how to work on things (I was, however, handy at disassembly and reassembly) we ended up binning it. One of these days I'll track down another like that to put here by the computer. I recall seeing a similar model to this deck at a friend's house as a kid (in the US), I was shocked at the method of loading and I really liked the way the cassette was prominently displayed to the user. (Keep in mind, I only knew of the cheap boombox mechanisms, cheap Walkmans, my father's old console-style deck which I think may have been a Panasonic, the generic car radio side-load, and my mother's Pontiac car stereo [Delco], which oddly enough, went in with the entire tape facing inward). **SIDE NOTE: the mechanisms were Blaupunkt and remarkably bulletproof, with a rather forceful auto-eject when the car was turned off that occasionally launched a tape completely out of the deck.** I almost drooled at 5:24.
Thanks for two jolts of recognition in this video. The first when I saw the angled mechanism - I remember staring for hours at the reflected reels turning on what must have been a deck owned by my dad's friend. The other was just when I was wondering about my grandfather's table-top cassette recorder and then that was revealed at 06:00 to actually be the first ever stereo deck! I never knew! (Funny enough he also had the same Philips portable recorder shown right before that - looking back he was quite an audiophile... I still use the Dual record deck and Telefunken receiver from that period which he gave me when he upgraded in the 1980s).
I have watched ~100 of your clips this past month. You attention to detail and excellent information is invaluable to us all. I was always wondering why our mid-70's Optonica 2050 had an angled tape loader. You have answered this question for me and many, many more. Thank you!
It's so nice that you always say, "Thanks for watching". I say, thank YOU for always making such fascinating, entertaining videos. You, sir, are a star!
Love This Channel, Always Watch It And Love Seeing All The Different Interesting Things There Was Or Is Now, Congratulations On Making It To The 1 Million Subscriber Mark! I’m Happy To Be One Of Them.
I never saw the pioneer tuning fork until about 8 minutes before you brought it up! That backlit shot really showed it off. The stylised logo of the 90s+ let's your imagination run wild
I really love the old "heres your sodding tape" ejection system over the more modern "your casette sir" type slowly opening doors.
I had a Sony HMK-30 horizontal-style music centre with a ridiculously violent eject system. The door would still be clattering up and down against the cassette as it flew out towards you. The transport buttons themselves had sharp edges and could be painful to press.
Both are outdated like cassettes themselves.
@@ConsumerDV Hush. If you don't like videos about obsolete equipment, there's millions of hours of other stuff on TH-cam.
Anyway, yeah, the slow-open doors are cute for about ten minutes, but I'd always get impatient with them.
@@TheRealColBosch I do like the video. But there is no "more modern". There is modern, and there is outdated.
"here, have your fucking disgusting BTS hits tape" [CLACK]
Digital clocks with the flipping-card faces
VU meters showing signaling traces
Brushed metal finishes giving a sheen
These are a few of Mat’s favorite things
Experimental Japanese domestics
Cassette deck changers with complex mechanics
Hi-fi components for opera that sings
These are a few of Mat’s favorite things
Best use of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” award goes to this montage of Techmoan favorites.
Maybe also some brexit criticism.
I laughed AND smiled at that use
Neon Genesis Evangelion series & Die Hard movie reference.
I can't help but think of Clockwork Orange every time I hear it. Especially in a British context.
Well
even "Freude schöner Götterfunke" is in German and i am German i could never understand what they singing ;)
This is a beautiful machine. The subtle lighting and the mirror effect on the angled, backlit cassette slot are very disco-era. I love a big chunky deck of this period but then I also love the later black fascia stuff too (especially Panasonic / Technics, I'm putting together a retro Matsushita stack for my living room). The Japanese manufacturers were absolutely at the top of their game between the mid-Seventies and the late 1990s and I think we've lost something important and tangible with the move away from physical media and the machines used to play it. Well done on saving this beauty - I suspect the restoration video will be worth the wait :)
I’m only two minutes in but these videos start to look more and more like little masterpieces! Really awesome!
Agreed. Superb content every time 👍🏼
One of the most consistent TH-cam channels, always interesting to watch every time.
+Lachlan Lau
If you’re a patron on Patreon, you get to see the videos early. You have to pay a certain amount, however.
I don't own or even collect very much tech, just not really very much _into_ it for personal use. But the videos are so interesting and well done, I watch Every video this guy puts out, I really don't care what he's going to be talking about, I know it's going to entertain me no matter what.
How is your comment published 1 week ago?
"I'm no expert" proceeds to restore an intricate esoteric feature-packed machine to factory spec in excruciating detail
Looking forward to viewing the restoration sometime in the future!
I’m not really looking forward to editing it - there’s a heck of a lot of video to scrub through. It’ll probably be a couple of weeks before I can start on it.
@@Techmoan Much appreciate your slogging through it when you get the chance. I am very interested in watching others solve problems with old tech as much as viewing the end result. I do the same as a hobby which I quite enjoy.
@@pghcoyote +1 to looking forward to the restoration video :) do those videos get more views that normal overviews/reviews?
Views seem to be pretty random all-round. I never know what's going to do well - usually my favourite videos, the ones I'm happiest with, do worst.
@@Techmoan Don't sweat it too much. I think I speak for a lot of people who want as much as possible. I mean, it's not like we have some place to go.
14:25 There's something very reasssuring and comforting in the warm orange glow of bulbs on old hifi equipment. Reminds me of nights spent trying to tune in distant radio stations in a desperate bid to hear something a bit different.
Better still, the blue/yellow glow from a tube amp.
You've still managed to show the clock showing 13:37 😂
“I recorded around 10 hours of video. I need to edit that down into something snappier.”
I almost guarantee that some of us would love the raw version.
1mil sub special
I remember seeing his shortened mini disc unwrap upload, pausing that to watch the full 73 minute video, and then coming back and finishing viewing the abridged version as well.
@@DJzSith I almost did that, but stuck with the Long Play version. I have zero reason to buy a MD player or any of the software, but I was riveted for those 73 minutes.
That will upload 9999hours
Sad.
I have never seen the angled cassette door before - I love it!
I guess that's part of the charm of this channel. You see weird stuff from the past that used to be kind of common, but seems completely odd by now.
How is this comment 6 days ago? Didn’t this video drop a couple of hours ago?
@@Danny-wv8ec Patreon backers often get to see videos earlier.
Paul Dennett ahh, I didn’t think of that. Thanks for clearing it up.
@@Danny-wv8ec now I feel so special :)
I literally said out loud to myself "and it's got a flip clock too!" right as the music came to a crescendo. That montage checklist is one of the coolest things you have shown. Hans Gruber's reaction truly conveys that feeling tech nerds get with a cool piece of gear. 😄
Thanks Mat for this. My dad's CT-F2121 was used for recording many 'pause button mixes' in the mid 80s - fast choppy edits of electro and hip hop records. That simple pause button with instant stop-start was essential back in the day. The rest of the buttons received some severe mashing but the deck never failed. Wish I still had it!
The pause button on our hi-fi's tape deck eventually broke off (metal fatigue?) for the same reason. One too many n-n-n-n-19 inspired stutter cuts and I had just enough time to notice the button had gone a little 'soft' before it simply fell off.
can you tell me what the hip hop beat was that was played by the end of the video?
Your dad was cool.
From 1976 - 1979 I was marketing manager for AIWA UK, highly respected for their cassette decks. I visited the Japanese factories and was involved in highest level discussions regarding future international designs. As you are well aware, for every manufacturer it was normal to introduce new models every year and if there were no new technical features available for incorporation (for example wireless remote control, Dolby C, three heads, metal tape, etc) then the newest models tended to have cosmetic revamps similar to motor cars. Having been involved in a lot of market research in the UK with focus groups, three things stood out: front loading was greatly appreciated by the vast majority, one of the benefits being that you could remove the plastic door to gain access to the heads and pinch wheel for manual cleaning purposes, as well as degaussing the heads; secondly, soft touch piano keys and damped door opening had great tactile value in marketing and sales terms; and thirdly when micro hi-fi arrived in 1978 it established the first truly ‘wow!’ factor amongst consumers. I, myself, loved the AIWA AD-1250 slant cassette deck, which was our greatest seller and established the AIWA name internationally, and therefore appreciate why you like other brands representing a lost genre!
Another amazing video. Riveting. Never saw a 30 degree loader before in my life. When you zoomed out to reveal this thing had a flip clock my reaction was palpable. I’m drooling at the repair video. Feel free to post the full raw 10 hours. The huge minidisc unwrapping was still a highlight of 2020. Thank you for creating and sharing this!
I really love these retro videos. As an '80s born child in India, I'm now realizing how valuable tapes were to listening to music. With CD's and Digital, what we gained in convenience, we lost in patience. Back in the days, we used to more or less listen to the entire album, despite liking only a few songs on the cassette. Gradually, it made sense, why the artist arranged those specific songs in that specific order. Call it repetition or call it an appreciation for art, it's all the same now.
At 38, I'm now going back to Vinyls, Tapes and CD's and I find the connection with a solid medium adds so much more value. The artwork, the sleeve, the lyrics on the inside cover. Digital misses out so much on all of this stuff.
Don't get me wrong. I love my FLAC's and how solid they sound, but there is something about touching a Vinyl sleeve or a Cassette / CD box cover that is missing while I mouse over and click on my computer to play music.
I love how the sound of the tape stopping and the music rapidly winding down goes perfectly with that funky music at 12:35. Well done!
Yeah... I wouldn't be surprised if he did that on purpose😂
I have been figuring out what song it was. Since It sounded quite familiar to me, Does anybody know what the name of the song and the artist was?
Whoaa! I'm Fran from Argentina, the owner of a FW-91 Phillips DCC mini chain. I'm really blown away by the Sony deck with Dolby S and what it looked like a Phillips DCC 900 deck. What a pleasure...
When the music swelled, and the front was revealed with all the bits AND the flip clock, I literally lol’d. Well done.
When he went through the "favourite things" list, I couldn't see much of a connection between flip digit clocks and cassette decks. When I saw the whole machine facia, I nearly fell off my stool.
Yes. Well done, indeed.
These aren't any TH-cam videos. This is surely art. What you're doing here is extremely rare to see in any other TH-cam channel. You are simply born to do this, I guess. Please keep up the amazing job!
When your cassette deck lulls you to sleep with soothing music, then the sleep timer wakes you up with a less than soothing CLUNK.
When the end of the tape arrives, the CLUNK will sound, sleep timer or not!
Beats falling asleep watching a VHS on my girlfriends built-into-tv player back in he pre streaming day and waking up to the end-of-tape squealing!
You've never woken up to the melodious splatter and asthmatic gurgle of a proper Teasmade.
I have indeed, more than once. A proper Goblin Teasmade no less.
@@jeffhughes1318 Sweet! I'd love to have an original Goblin --- but I live in Switzerland and they're too expensive to import. They still make them, but the modern ones look like suck.
07:52 Thank you for crediting me with the invention of the door-held tape loading mechanism! You are the first person to do so, my time and space-transcending genius constantly goes underappreciated.
wait, what? you invented that? I need to see proof!
@@juango500 I think at this point a youngster usually arrives to make mention of a certain reddit thread..
I love it when Techmoan uploads; it's one of those incredibly interesting and educational shows that gives such a necessary and fulfilling reprieve from the insanity that is basically the rest of TH-cam.
Best wishes sir; another fantastic video!
These retro hifi videos are among a few of my favorite things. Never fails, there is always a dopamine rush to go with them.
The premise of this video is amazing. As much as I love a video focusing on a single device, covering the patterns of development and features in a category of products, and especially how different technical accomplishments either revolutionised the industry and appealed to customers, or were a commercial failure that didn't make a meaningful difference for the customers. Sometimes incredibly intelligent people are able to make incredible inventions that nobody wants to buy.
When i was young i always called the Pioneer Logo "the broken ohm symbol" ... never saw the tuning fork... Thats actually amazing.
BTW : 1250 DM from 1975 are about 1660 Euro / 1860 USD / 1500 GBP today (inflation corrected). Crazy.
Well, given that somewhat upscale HiFi/audiophile DMPs (which I arbitrarily took as today’s casette deck-equivalent) appear to run from about 500€ to 25'000€, averaging at about 2'000-ish, I don’t think that’s all that outrageous…
Going by this roundup of tests by one of Germany’s better known and long-established HiFi magazines, at least: www.stereo.de/hifi-test/kategorie/netzwerkspieler
I'm from Germany and my Grandparents like to calculate the price of stuff in Marks by using the 2001 exchange rates of roughly 2 marks for 1 Euro. No grandma, 500€ doesn't equal 1000 Marks in 1990. But to be fair we are from the east, so they never learned what inflation means because prices in the GDR stayed the same from when they were born to 1989.
Brilliant Matt. Great in depth info. Stunning deck with the flip clock. Love the way most of the units display the complete face of the cassette and not just a letterbox view.
So much effort and love went into the designs of HiFis in the 70's.
Take care. A&J
I think tape should have stuck around, but who am I with my antiquated tastes 😅
Congrats on 1M Subscribers Techmoan (As Of 09/07/2020 19:34 UK)!!!! Your content is totally awesome!!!!
12:35 I rather enjoyed how the sleep timer killed the song exactly on-beat.
I loved the illumination on this type of equipment. Nothing better than late night listening in a dark room lit only by the stereo. Especially with a friend!
Well done. I really hope to see the repair video. You had me at that drill!
It’s not a good day when you have to take a drill to a cassette deck.
Also is it just me or is the frame of this machine looking a bit wonky when it is opened up in one picture?
@@Techmoan 🤣
@@Techmoan I would to hear where you source the cassette drive belts!
I was impressed when you unwrapped it and it looked brand new--and at the end we learned it was because you spent a month restoring it.
Beautiful machine!
There was one more evolution in tape loading: The tapes held by the door, but loaded "upside down" -- with the part that contacts the head on the top.
Brilliant! Can't wait for the repair video.
I'm on board with you there too. I am an electronics experimenter and I have watched him fix things before and admire his persistence and method with his limited knowledge.
He does extremely well
That whole transition from “my favourite things” to the unpacking of the tape deck, to the shots of the sections of the deck set to Ode to Joy was beautifully perfect.
I love that 70's stereo equipment. Everything had a brushed stainless steel face on it. All my stuff is the same way.
@Perverted Alchemist Yeah, nowadays aluminium is something nobody can afford.
@Perverted Alchemist Literally all my midrange modern stuff has a brushed metal front. Yamaha, Denon, Martantz, Pioneer. No idea what you're talking about.
@Perverted Alchemist I am talking about all modern stuff. I have a 4K receiver and it's brushed metal. It's a ridiculously thin piece of aluminum that's been stamped and put over a plastic frame, but it's metal.
@Perverted Alchemist You make no sense. By definition expensive equipment is expensive. And as I said, the stuff has the same brushed metal. Look at Marantz. Look at Accuphase. Mcintosh is glass with brushed metal inserts. If consumer midrange gear has metal fronts today, then audiophile stuff does too.
fast forward 30 years to 2000, and a stainless steel / brushed steel kitchen was and still is the style
Heavily inspired by this channel I bought a Pioneer CT F2121 about a year ago. Lovely looking machine.
2:07 every time I start to unsee rolling shutter.... :P
The tape deck has rubber needles :P
Every minute in this guys company is an education and a pleasure.
You're not too far from one million subscribers on here, and I'm afraid I'll miss it when it happens, so I'll go ahead and wish you an early congratulations on one million subscribers, Mat!
I've enjoyed watching your channel for about 4 to 5 years now, and your foray into many unusual forms of tech and the machines that operate them never fail to impress me. You're one of the most entertaining creators I've seen on TH-cam in a long time and I enjoy every single video. (Not to mention that you've got an amazing taste in electronics!) You could talk about a can of beans for 20 minutes and I'd still be equally entertained.
I have never seen a tape deck with a built-in flip clock. I absolutely love this stuff. Thank you for posting!
Another great video with all the interesting details well explained. Thank you.
Always loved the way these old displays lit up. Sort of a vac-tube style warm glow.
Wow, this was just like my first cassette deck which i bought used in the late 70's. It was also a Pioneer in the same design but without the timer clock, apparently the CT-F2121 as i understand from watching your video. It was perfect for "pause button mixing" which i did a lot back in those days before i got my first mixer and set of turntables.
In the '70s, My Dad had a Garrard GC350, basically identical to the Pioneer CT-F2121, with the same angled cassette opening and Dolby B, except it had the eject button separate from the stop, also the door was operated manually. It also featured Cue/Review feature, where you could forward/rewind the tape while it is still in play mode, and hear the music at a lower volume at high speed. I wish I knew what happened to it, these are much rarer than the Pioneer versions, I can only find 2 poor quality photos of it online, and absolutely none for sale for many years.
0:25 I recently just bought a children's music cassette with the same lady on the cover. The title is also "The Sound Of Music" but only the eponymous song is included (no "My Favourite Things" though). The rest are some weird selections of songs with the most peculiar one being the Ghostbusters theme song.
Onemillion! Congratulations! Enjoy watching your videos for several years now. Very entertaining and inspiring. Thank you!
I'm guessing that audio clip was just a tad under 20 seconds long to avoid the copyright bots :->
always thought it was
It’s from the youtube audio library - one of the few recognisable classical pieces they’ve got available.
@@Techmoan how do you get by playing bits of BBC broadcasts?
By the way. Was that Gary Oldman? 😁
The 30-degree angle setup is so appealing to me. My very first deck ever featured such a loading setup, and I am still in love with it. The CT-50T sure is a beauty! Love the Pioneer decks with the metal lever controls.
12:37 now that stop was pretty groovy
Nice handyman special. Its nice to appreciate the work of those who went before in creating the classics.
I always wondered what the Pioneer logo was meant to represent - I just thought it was a cool-looking symbol, never saw the tuning fork / ohm symbol but once it's been pointed out it's so obvious!
I love my recently restored Dual C939 console cassette deck. It was produced from 1977-79. Four track head and autoreverse. Built like a tank.
As always your videos are produced to the highest standards as so incredibly nice to watch 👍👍
BTW: Do you remember these "Braun Atelier C3 Highend Kassettendeck" wich had a drawer coming out? When I was a kid we visited a relative and he had such a machine and I could press the button to make that motorized drawer come out - that blew my socks off :)
The ultimate in automatic cassette machines was of course the Nakamichi auto-reverse mechanism that physically unloaded the cassette, manually turned it around, and then re-inserted it. Magic.
@@albanana683 I remember those from the local HiFi dealer, great stuff! BTW: I have never seen this mechanic: th-cam.com/video/h_jcLRjrGPc/w-d-xo.html . I am just wondering, what else is out there!
Congrats on a Million!
9:23 Wait, so I didn't have to stop the tape before rewinding and fast-forwarding? Man, all those seconds I wasted.
well, depending on your time of usage of those functions, you could have lost a whole hour of your life.
If you used a VHS tape rewinder, you made up for it in time.
Although the equipment doesn't care, the tape can still snap or stretch if jerked around too hard. I would still hit stop when going from fast winding (forward or backward) to playback, so that you don't have what are effectively little flywheels (the spinning tape reels) yanking on tape that just got pinched between capstan and roller. From play to fast wind? No need to hit stop first, the mechanical slop will allow sufficient gap between the two events.
The later decks with solenoid-operated mechanisms protected the tape but were slow to switch modes while listening to the "ka-chunk, thunk" each time.
I recall as a kid playing with the piano key style function buttons on a low cost portable; I got it to play at high speed and even backwards once or twice!
Depended on the mechanism. Some didn’t care, some didn’t like it, some had interlocks to prevent it, some were designed to handle it safely (usually by stopping the mechanism before engaging the selected operation automatically).
Except for the latter, at least going from rewind to fast forward or play-and vice versa-would always be at least somewhat hard on the tape itself, though.
I watch every single video you post. Each one is absolute gold. Thank you.
11:32 Oh my god I love this shortwave receiver !
I got myself an Akai GXC 709D. Man I love those designs of the 70's tape decks.
I just laughed out loud. When the music started playing I thought "Hans just got the safe open" and then boom, there was Hans.
I’m going to count to 1337. There will not be a 1338.
Why doesn't this comment have more likes...
I absolutely love the levers that you push straight down and then bounce up. I don't even remember if my parents had that kind of deck or if it was my first job working for the school district, but I always loved that design.
1:16 Strange how that song reminds me of Christmas 😎 Welcome to the party, pal!
Come out to the coast, we'll get together, have a few laughs...
@@Techmoan Don't forget your vest!
I was just about to comment how “Ode To Joy” always reminds me of “Die Hard” , and then.... Hans Gruber appears Lol
@@PowerGlove79 The lovely lovely Ninth always reminds me of A Clockwork Orange (as does Singing in the Rain) so you know I'm probably not from the UK. The movie was banned there for years. So my dear droogs I shall now retire to breakfast for some lomticks of toast and a bit of moloko on me Cheerios. Viddy you all anotherr.
RMoribayashi See, “A clockwork orange” makes me think of the song “Singing In The Rain”
Excellent stuff. Reminds me of the luxurious Pioneer hi-fi system my dad bought after driving us bonkers testing and choosing in the 1970s. A console-style tape deck with the cool little twirly graphic to show the tape was turning, a turntable with S-shaped arm and a huge receiver with a tuning knob you could spin (and as a kid I did spin it a lot!). All shiny metal and wooden end-caps. It seemed like we'd moved up in the world and become very sophisticated. I totally understand where you're coming from. Those days are sadly gone.
7:55 - And thus began the era of less stable tape transports. While the door may be more practical, ditching the pegs meant the tape wasn't as firmly maintained in place as it used to be.
High end decks didn't suffer from that, but lower ends decks, especially walkmans? Well, that's an other story.
My grandfather had one of the old CT-9191’s. He gave it to me recently and I fixed it up, it really is a good sounding machine. It got me into pioneer stereos and now I even have two of your RT-707’s. I just wish I had one of those beautiful 909’s
The great thing about your content is it isn’t constrained to the themes or trends of TH-cam. TH-cam is just the platform you put these on, but they could exist independently on say a DVD release or anything outside of the context of TH-cam. Keep it up! I’ve always been curious about those weird cassette decks with the angled tape mechanism.
That is a beautiful machine buddy, when I was a nipper in 70s my mum had a sharp music center, which I grew up with and adored, in the 80s she bought a Pioneer midi system, and that changed everything to me, now 40 years later I saw someone selling the same midi system £40 and much to my fiancee annoyance I bought it anyway from doorstep without a demo. Once home found tape belts shot, and volume knob had earth probes and blasted full volume at a touch of the knob, so I let it go free, I still have the 2 way midi size speakers, they're in excellent condition and sound great, not bass reflex, but decent, dont know what to do with them, love your videos and adore your home setup, I share your love of old hifi and minidiscs and can only dream of owning a powerful system again after moving to Dorset from Essex, thin walls meand my Bose lifestyle 28 theater sits boxed in storage.... you lucky fella
1975 where the more wood grain it showed, the higher end the model lol
Oh man. I just had a perfect week celebrating the wedding and honeymoon my fiancée and I were supposed to have starting last Saturday before normality blew up. We stayed at my Aunt’s house in the country, relaxed, played music, and just drove home with our cat to the backdrop of a HUGE orange moon low on the horizon, while illegal 4th of July fireworks exploded in front of it, my favorite radio program of early 29th century country music playing all the while. Just when I thought this week couldn’t have been more perfect, (aside from the postponed wedding and all) and as I began to mourn its passing, Techmoan posts a PIONEER hifi component video!! Thank you, and if you’re looking for a good wedding present, next year around this exact time, I’ll have another!
The heat death of the universe will come, before you wear out the ratchet in a car's handbrake! -- Mechanic
Unnecessary comma.
Selrisitai I do overuse them. I like to write, as it the reader is a breathless old person.
One million subscribers, congratulations!
Boomers and Xers can probably attest to this comment.
Tech during the 1970's was not cheap.
Look up any Radio Shack catalogue from the Seventies as a reminder.
And don't forget to adjust for inflation
@@krzysztofczarnecki8238 Yup, my receiver, a previous year's Kenwood on clearance, and my ESS bookshelf speakers, each cost somewhat more than about one full month's student rent.
That flip clock on the front is amazing! Congratulations on finding another rare gem. I had a Marantz 5220 briefly so can relate to the slanted loading style. However, the first time I tried to clean the heads on that style deck told me that its days were numbered with me. Ended up with a mid-level Nakamichi and never looked back. Well done, Matt.
TechMoan: "I shot over 10 hours of video which I really need to edit down to something snappier"
TechMoan fans: "Post It as is :D"
Your video tours are brilliant. Excellent detective work tracking down all the old printed materials. Thanks.
01:30 Europe
my first thought exactly^^, a lighthearted comment on brexit...
I finally managed to track one of these down. The design is very interesting and i cant wait to tear it apart on the bench and sort out how to restore it. Thank you so much for both this history lesson and your tear down and repair attempt.
I'm old enough to remember these classic electronic devices made all in Japan, unfortunately these days most of it is made in china. I owned several different Japanese electronic devices, and let me say that they were 100% BETTER QUALITY then today's throw away Chinese junk. Oh those good old days of proper electronics. -( regards.
I've always loved the looks of the brushed aluminum front panels. I still have all my Pioneer components that I bought in 1976. The top end cassette deck needs serviced, switches going bad, 60w integrated amp. and I believe a PH 150 turntable. I'd had a SX 737 earlier that I'd sold to a friend that I'd love to find another one. I remember the high wattage receivers and amps. being extremely heavy back then. Remember going into the Hi-fi stores in the 70's and being overwhelmed by the number of models, the smell of the new electronics and of coarse having the sales person fire up the systems you were wanting to hear.
Has this ever happened...
Mr Tech Moan - "Mrs Tech Moan, shall we turn the lights down?"
Mrs TM: "oh... Yes, shall we?"
Mr TM : "yes... Now, look how much better those VU meters look!"
@Shaz Ahmad
Has Mrs. Techmoan ever appeared on his channel? lol
Great video! Back in '76 I had a Technics RS-630 US cassette w/the same angled loading area. Loved that deck. In '79 I moved and bought a Pioneer CTF-750 auto reverse deck. Never had need of the timer function. Today I still have over 200 cassettes (mainly TDK) and a Denon DRM-555 deck. All still playable
New tech moan video? Vintage tape decks? For me, the world stops, I grab a cuppa and I'm there!
Always enjoy watching your videos and continue to learn from them, blasts into the past that deliver goodness.
“Pearl Harbour didn’t work out, so we got you with tape decks...”
True that 🤣
I don’t know if the music choice was a deliberate nod to ‘Die Hard’, bit it made me think of that line...
This video brings back memories of the 70s. I used to have a Pioneer CTF6161 tape cassette deck as part of my Hi Fi set up...
Great video and I can’t wait for that “repair” video too.
When I was a kid me and my cousin used to have a huge ‘music centre’ system, can’t remember make/model, bought it for a few quid from an auction but it had the ability to skip tape tracks etc (I assume it looked for the gaps between tracks). We had it in our “den” that we built in my grandads garden, we also had a pioneer amp and huge KEF speakers (all bought for a few quid at auction), and I built a small fm transmitter 😉
Problem was we only had a few tapes/records and the transmitter probably only reached a few hundred yards at most 🤣 still we had some fun.
The build-up and reveal of "the device that ticked all the boxes" was really nicely crafted.
If your tape deck didn't have a timer, you might have had to do what I did with my Aiwa deck back in the mid 90s. I had a simple digital appliance timer and plugged the deck into that. There was a digital tuner shortwave radio next to it with multiple timers. The deck would let me put it in auto record mode so as soon as the timer turned on the power, both the radio and the deck came on and the recording began. The deck would auto flip the tape and keep rolling on both sides of a cassette. The radio timer used tuner presets so the whole works would come on, record one program, turn off, turn on again, change stations and recorde again and keep doing that two or three times a night. This was vital since I was working during the day and not able to stay up very late listening to shortwave. I absolutely loved that clever little setup. Only stopped doing that because the shortwave stations I wanted to hear kept changing to frequencies I could not catch with my antenna.
This is a really sharp looking tape deck. I love the angle front loading mechanism, I can't say I've ever seen any like it myself. I'm quite fond of the Pioneer audio gear from around that era. That warm glow from the clock is just perfect!
I love a good flip clock, too. I had a hand-me-down General Electric alarm clock radio with a flip display that I loved until the motor gave out. Being too young to know how to work on things (I was, however, handy at disassembly and reassembly) we ended up binning it. One of these days I'll track down another like that to put here by the computer.
I recall seeing a similar model to this deck at a friend's house as a kid (in the US), I was shocked at the method of loading and I really liked the way the cassette was prominently displayed to the user. (Keep in mind, I only knew of the cheap boombox mechanisms, cheap Walkmans, my father's old console-style deck which I think may have been a Panasonic, the generic car radio side-load, and my mother's Pontiac car stereo [Delco], which oddly enough, went in with the entire tape facing inward). **SIDE NOTE: the mechanisms were Blaupunkt and remarkably bulletproof, with a rather forceful auto-eject when the car was turned off that occasionally launched a tape completely out of the deck.**
I almost drooled at 5:24.
Thanks for two jolts of recognition in this video. The first when I saw the angled mechanism - I remember staring for hours at the reflected reels turning on what must have been a deck owned by my dad's friend. The other was just when I was wondering about my grandfather's table-top cassette recorder and then that was revealed at 06:00 to actually be the first ever stereo deck! I never knew! (Funny enough he also had the same Philips portable recorder shown right before that - looking back he was quite an audiophile... I still use the Dual record deck and Telefunken receiver from that period which he gave me when he upgraded in the 1980s).
Happy 1 mil subscribers
Really like the look of the diagonal deck - especially how the light reflects off the clear-case cassettes.
I have watched ~100 of your clips this past month.
You attention to detail and excellent information is invaluable to us all.
I was always wondering why our mid-70's Optonica 2050 had an angled tape loader.
You have answered this question for me and many, many more.
Thank you!
Welcome to the club, Clint and David were already waiting for you. The million subscriber trinity, united at last! Congrats!
I cant say how much I have enjoyed your videos, thanks and keep up the good work. 1 Million subscribers looks like its not far away either.
It's so nice that you always say, "Thanks for watching". I say, thank YOU for always making such fascinating, entertaining videos. You, sir, are a star!
I Iove the little clip of Hans, like the vault was being opened, beautiful piece of equipment for sure.
Love This Channel, Always Watch It And Love Seeing All The Different Interesting Things There Was Or Is Now, Congratulations On Making It To The 1 Million Subscriber Mark! I’m Happy To Be One Of Them.
I never saw the pioneer tuning fork until about 8 minutes before you brought it up! That backlit shot really showed it off. The stylised logo of the 90s+ let's your imagination run wild
One million subscribers just around the corner finally. You have some of the absolute best content out there and it's way overdue.