1970s Panasonic Take 'n Tape portable cassette recorder
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 ส.ค. 2021
- The cassette counterpart to Panasonic's "Dynamite" 8-track player: the Take 'n Tape portable cassette recorder, model RQ-711S, circa 1973-1975. Yes, people were already using "tape" as a verb back then!
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I think this model was a key prop in a dramatic ending to a Hawaii Five-O episode: th-cam.com/video/BrMyl0VOQNQ/w-d-xo.html (of course they renamed the branding - but it's definitely the model they used).
Yup, those are definitely Take 'n Tapes!
Being 60 years old, I actually remember that episode! If I remember correctly, the re-named moniker they used was "Tronisonic" insead of "Panasonic)
BOOK "EM DANNO!
At the very beginning of that clip, I think I saw a Panaphonics TV!
@@albear972 Homer's favorite!
What thrift stores do you have near you you find all this cool stuff!
It looks pretty modern actually I wouldn’t guess it’s from the 70s
I got a Take & Tape player for my birthday in 1974. It eventually wore out. I know they made them until at least 1980 because I remember buying one that year.
Oh man that advertisement at the end was the chefs kiss to a wonderfully informative video. I've been watching the classic Hawaii Five-O and I looked up this recorder after finishing the episode that it was featured in.
I gave one of these to my nephew, way back in 1974(when he was 10) as a present for Xmas. But in Australia it was not marketed as "Take 'n Tape", in fact it was just sold without any hype at all, as far as I recall.
I had one of those back in the day and wore it out. I did a homework project that was due at end of school year (12 years old). I played a reporter and interviewed 6 Detroit Cass Corridor prostitutes with candid snapshots from a Polaroid. You should have seen the look on the teachers face when I presented it. I got an A+ but my parents were infuriated with me. Those woman were my friends and actually have fond memories of them. They always looked out for me and were kind. They never solicited me.Those were tumultuous times for a young white boy who didn't see color living on the east side of Detroit.
Sounds cool. As a white boy in Boston who interacts with people like that a lot, I can understand what its like. Do you have any more stories? Maybe try blogging about your Detroit experiences?
I had one of those Panasonic Take n Tape machines; got it in ‘73, in Blue. It was my first cassette player/recorder which replaced a mini reel to reel (like in Mission Impossible) machine. I used it to play and record, and put a lot of mileage on it. The case may have been plastic, but the mechanism inside still had a decent build quality.
Great machine and memories. The handle did crack and break, but I taped it together and used it for many years until I wore out the playback head.
You made note of the amount of plastic in the tape transport chassis when showing the insides. This was a low-cost unit even when new. But it still sounded very good, and I really couldn't detect any wow or flutter to speak of. That heavy die-cast capstan flywheel seems to be the key. It might be entertaining to see the W&F of this little player compared to some recently made tape decks and players.
Thanks much for posting this. I got the blue one in 1973 for my birthday and thought it was the coolest thing ever. I remember the first cassette I listened to it in was the American Graffiti soundtrack. The sound was good by my 11 year old ear and the plastic was pretty tough as I remember I drug it everywhere. I think the design still looks cool today. Panasonic was so hep back then. Yeah, the built in mic kinda stunk, but that didn't stop me from trying to tape(.v) the hits off of 68WRKO, lol. I remember sitting on the floor, waiting in front of the stereo speaker for a good song to finally come on...then there it was at last...all would be going great until my nosy sister would barge in the room and ruin the whole thing!
That’s a pretty nice player, the design holds up well and it sounds pretty good!
Had the yellow one. My father was very much into audio systems. It was my entry into the hobby at the age of 9.
that's like, the best-looking cassette recorder i have ever seen
When I was 20 ( and poor) in 1978 I got one of those red Panasonic cassette players and hooked a speaker into the headphone jack. My Led Zeppelin cassettes sounded pretty good.
At first when I saw the video at the start I thought it was a cheap plastic cassette player, ion,etc. But I was fooled when you said that it was from the 70s. Another great video. Keep up the great work!
I was a kid in the 1970s. And, yes, I had a succession of portable transistor radios. Mostly really cheap ones. AM only. Until my parents saw how much I used them, and then they got me more expensive ones with AM/FM and sometimes other bands. My main cassette player recorder during the period was one from Sears which had a unique joystick control mechanism. You can see Andrienne Barbeau use one exactly like it in John Carpenter's THE FOG. But although I remember the "dynamite" decks, I don't recall these at all.
I feel like this device was a huge influence on the design and construction of the Fisher Price tape recorder which debuted not too long after this was discontinued. It even used 4 C batteries.
That Cassette song is a bop. Will have to look them up on Spotify.
I doubt you'll find them!
@@vwestlife the Shazam didn’t work so probably not on Spotify!
Excellent Review VWestlife of the Panasonic Take' n Tape Portable Cassette Recorder. 😊👍
WOW, I remember the Dynamite 8-track players as a kid in the 80's but not the Take 'n Tape. I did not know the Take 'n Tape existed thanks for sharing!
Wow! I am getting old. I had two of those Panasonic portable 8 track tape players in the 70's in red and blue.
I had the white one of the take and tape.... Aww man... Right back to 4 years old...... The memories...
I just found a yellow one AND a white one digging through crap in my basement. Guess I gotta collect them all now.
I got a red one for my 10th birthday in 1975. It worked great for mamy years.
I had the exact same one and the exact same color. Really brought me back.
Naming your band "Cassette" is kind of like naming your video game "Download" -- there was one on the PC Engine. It will guarantee that it will be nigh-impossible to find the thing over the web.
It's even worse, actually, imagine the headache at the record shops at the time. "- Do you have a new Cassette on 45? - Ehhh... What?" No wonder that was their one and only single.
Luckily we did not have the web back then to confuse us. But there was actually also a band called "Cassette" from South Africa in the late 2000s, I just discovered, and they would surely have an identity problem.
@@mauritsvw Yes, I saw a music video by the other "Cassette" band and quickly realized they are not related.
@@vwestlife On discogs this particular band are marked "Cassette (10)" , so it looks like stupidly popular name.
We preferred _Music Band_ back in high school...
I remember hearing and seeing on youtube a song called c30 c60 c90, and you see footage from inside a record pressing plant, it is a song somewhere in the 80's.
You could almost say this was a predecessor to the Fisher-Price portable tape recorders, it looks quite like one of them I think. I'd say that tape recorder uses DC bias for its recording, the built in microphone sounded particularly scratchy. Still, quite a nice specimen. I'd say this really was aimed at children and teenagers.
The ones that were shaped kinda like a milk carton?
I picked up something like that up once at a flea market because I thought it looked cool
I remember it being well made and robust for something that is supose to be a toy. I was excited to have a piece of retro tech I could use to play my tapes on because my other player had just crapped out about around the same time and I needed one badly. Payed $4 for it with bateries.
Thanks for opening it up and showing the guts. :)
Nice Find I always liked Panasonic products I have a 1980s Panasonic Walkman .
I had one of those Dynamite 8-Track players in thee mid 70's, a yellow one. Wish I still had it.
First: Awesome find! I'm a big fan of the cassette portables of the 70s, and to find one in such great shape is fantastic. Second, I'd say that the sound is not the very worst I've ever heard. Quite fun!
And just to add a bit of context, I grew up in the 70s watching the "bad boys" in my school hanging out with the 8-track portables for blasting their reggae (reggae was made for 8-track), whereas I was a more delicate sort who preferred the cassettes my older brother would make for me of his record collection. I was also a big fan of the Radio Shack catalogue and I can tell you that Christmas for me was when the new one appeared at our local dealership.
That cassette recorder brings back some memories. We had that Panasonic recorder too, also in white. We got ours in 1976 so it might have been still in production then. An unremarkable cassette recorder that did the job. I used that to record American Top 40 back for awhile until I got something better. I found that if you connected the output directly from a radio into the earphone output of that cassette recorder, it would act as an auxiliary jack. I think I had to short the mic jack to keep the built-in mike from picking up the sounds in the room. That group, "Cassette" from the Netherlands. Sounds like some of the EDM stuff released today.
The take away from this is that Cassette is an under rated band.
These changed in 1976 to the RQ - 304S with a non adjustable handle and different style knobs. I bought one in excellent condition with box but no sound. I got it working and put a new belt on it and now it's like new.
My cousins had that portable cassette player back in the early 70s! They went every to every with them. It was cool back then. They took them everywhere they went.
For today, that thing wouldn't even pass as a kids' toy. For the 1970s, very desirable. Portable music was a rarity, and it still plays decently, even if it's mono.
I forgot that I had one of these in the 70s until I saw the video.
While we're being nostalgic, note that the girl on the cassette cover is wearing classic Sennheiser HD414 headphones.
I know that this video has been up here a while, and on TH-cam there are commercials for this unit as well as the portable 8-track. I had always been under the impression that the only tape recorders there were that you had to hold fast forward and rewind down were the old FisherPrice machines which I had gotten for my 5th birthday in 1981.
_"Harmonious Ideal and Natural-Sound Seeker"_
_"Tranquility is beauty. Equanimity is joy."_
The Take N Tape (And the TNT 8-Track Player) are so cool! I have the red Take N Tape and the yellow 8-Track player. These things were built very well! And it's also awesome that they were featured in an episode of Hawaii Five-O!
This reminds me of those Fisher Price kids tape recorders from back in the late 70's/early 80's.
Those and the “My First Sony” tape recorders.
Wow! I forgot all about this one! Thanks!
Another great video by the Marlon Brando of Tech.
I really think those Panasonic Designers/Engineers from the 70's were grandmasters of their craft. It's a delight to look at them, even from a brochure of the era (From Alarm Clocks to Hi-Fi Systems)
I have always liked Panasonic since they seemed to deliver well made stuff that didn't fall apart very soon. Wonder if the same rings true (or even truer) for their old stuff...
Same. I still love those Panasonic cassette players
Me too, Panasonic fan boy here. 😎👍
Me also. All my Panasonic and Technics stuff that I bought in the 1980s is still trucking on. Most Panasonic made things are very robust and built like a tank!
@@RJDA.Dakota Yeah. Only janky Panasonic branded thing I got was a 28" Widescreen CRT at the tail end of the nineties. It worked for a few years and then no more.
@@needfortweed8734 Hmm 🤔 strange. I’ve never had that bad of luck with any electronics, except for a GE radio. I bought a new Vizio to replace an earlier Vizio made in 2007 that still works today. I usually have things based on the track record of the things that I have actually bought previously from and like. If I really had that bad of luck with something, I would really never buy it again. That LG I had previously seen in another video is a great example.
My first cassette player as a child _(in stunning 70s orange)_ I miss it and should have kept it!
I had the Blue one!
I still have my red one! Lost my parents in the last couple years, and mine was still hanging out at my childhood home!
Great video! I’m very impressed with your skills in decoding that date code. Well done!
Not skills, just looking it up. There are conversion calendars online.
@@vwestlife If I’m not mistaken, the very first numerical digit in the serial number on most Matsushita equipment is the last digit of the year.
I owned the blue cassette recorder when young. It may be somewhere in my old stuff.
I first started college in 1973. Post-hippy and Pre-disco. There were two factions (we all did bongs back then). One faction was Joni Mitchell, Genesis et. al. The other faction was Yes, ELO et. al. The Yes boys pledged fraternities. The Mitchell boys did not. (I was a Mitchell boy.) When I went to Italy for my junior year abroad one of the guys went home for Christmas. He brought back a cheap tape recorder with the song "Love to Love You Baby." I thought, "What the hell is this?"
It been a few months since I watch your channel. I was a bit busy and right now I'm busy with school so why not drop by and watch you video.
My sister had the Dynamite eight track. It was a cool thing in its time.
This is a great 👍 product that us hippies should be carrying around. I like 👍 the “flower” mic 🎤 on the front. Don’t know if we should listen 👂 to “bootleg” stuff on it. Your friend, Jeff.
I had this model in blue when I was a preschooler. Here in the UK, Matsushita marketed them as National rather than Panasonic.
My parents back in the mid 90's bought a used 1974 Airstream travel trailer out of a newspaper ad from an old guy who was moving, and when we were cleaning it up in one of the cabinets we found one of these in Yellow sadly batteries had been left in it, and it no longer worked so they tossed it in the trash. man I wish I had the foresight as a kid to have saved it from the landfill. 😞
I had two siblings. We each had one, each in a different color. What a great memory.
There is another version of
The panasonic tape player
It was made in 1976
It has a black handle that stays still does not retract
Came in only 3 colors
Red white and blue
For the bicentennial year.
Hi VWestlife. Another great video! My grandparents found a secondhand blue one of these in the 90s for us kids to play with, although it was missing its battery cover so we always had sticky tape to hold the batteries in place lol. In Australia they were branded under "National" as for some reason they were slow to transition from National to Panasonic in Aus. My grandfathers VHS video camera was still a National brand when he purchased it in 1986.
It genuinely looks like something that could have been made in the late 90s/early 2000s, they were just that ahead of the game with their retro style... :P
Darn, I had one of these, Orange?
On mine the mic died, my brother, with a blue one, the door broke. We called Panasonic service and they supplied the spare parts to us to do out own repairs - imagine that today.
The audio in the video sounded awful, however it fits my memory of it perfectly.
No there is nothing wrong with the unit showed, that's just how they were.
Sigh. I miss the days when consumers were assumed to be independent and competent enough to operate a screwdriver and soldering iron.
some treadmill companies will still have the owner instal the replacement parts today
They made a yellow one, but not orange.
I'm surprised. I had a lot of Panasonic products in the 1970's (Multiband radios, Tape recorders...). and all were solid values that never failed me in normal use. I had a circa 1976 Panasonic RF-1060 that was severely melted in a garage fire in 1985. I wired up a 6volt DC source and a speaker to it's remains, AND THE DAMN THING PLAYED! (Only the station is was left on because the dial control was gone), But HEY...) I recently got another RF-1060 from FleaBay for nostalgic reasons, And outside of NOAA, there isn't a lot on "PSB" (VHF-High band) today, But it's AM/FM performance is STILL better than most NEW radios. (Being 100% analog is a HUGE help on AM!) But perhaps since these recorders were aimed at the "youth market", corners were cut to make them affordable for "the kids".
There are many things that make this my favorite tech/electronics channel on YT and near the top of the list is Kevin’s choice of music during the demo’s. So many bands and tracks I’ve never heard of. So thanks again for all the great videos!
Panasonic had style. They made a lot of iconic devices. What passes for style today, such as pink iPhones, not so much.
Thanks for the video, Kevin.
I have a red one of these. The high frequency response on this series is was way better than I expected. My plan was to collect all the colors of this model but the ebay prices on these have gotten ridiculous.
I had the exact one! Loved this thing in the 70's!"
I live in Indonesia and seeing that you have one of those tapes is hilarious, you can still find a ton of them bootleg tapes at flea markets and 2nd hand shops. The titles are usually "Walkman Special Action" or "Best Hits" with a random collection of songs and they usually go for 5 cents a pop. And yeah nobody cared about copyright in those days :)
Yes, I actually also have the Walkman Special Action tape too!
Holy moly! Where did you get that tape? Snips is correct, we in Indonesia were used to that kind of distribution until 1988, because there were no way to get legit music albums nor singles. "Hins" was one of the biggest label, along with "King's Records" and "Atlantic Records". Therefore, that "Walkman Fever" tape must be older than 1988, probably 1981, based on the design.
@@kopisusu2000 I've found bootleg cassettes of Western pop music from Southeast Asia and the Middle East (some in chunky "heatproof" boxes) in American thrift stores, even in cities where you wouldn't really expect to find that sort of thing. I'm guessing a lot were brought back by servicemen in the 80s and 90s because I've never seen them in Canada.
@@TD070VA1 you are accurate about Atlantic Records. The one I mentioned was just another local publisher. Sorry I was not more clear about that.
Also, of course, lots of Indonesians, mainly students, must have brought those tapes during the 80's and 90's to North America.
@@irtbmtind89 , I understand. And thanks for reminding me about those chunky boxes. They were quite popular among Indonesian publishers in ... late 80's, I guess.
Anyway, I actually lived in Canada in late 80's and also mid 90's, and I know for a fact that some Indonesian immigrants did bring some of those bootleg tapes into Canada. So, if you would thoroughly browse thrift stores, especially in the greater Vancouver, B.C. area, you might find some of those tapes. This also answered my original question. Thank you.
One of my childhood friends had the blue cassette player. In the early 80's we took it with us everywhere on our bikes.
Love your videos! I was very young, but I actually remember the 8-track version being advertised on TV when I was a kid.
I received the red one as a 8th birthday present, and I loved it. Regarding the sound quality of it, you have to remember the level of audio cassette technology back then. The commercial tapes I had back then sounded decent enough.
We had the Red one. I remember a friend borrowed it to record an interview with our grade school principal. And we must have heard the tape, because I remember the principal saying he had never seen "such a fancy tape recorder" before.
The Mono sounds great for a portable boombox. :)
such a happy little machine ! beautiful !
that cassette song sounds funky!!!
This was cheap fun. Hope you return or resell this piece of...fine 1970s technology.
I had one of those 8-track players in '73 or '74. It sounded good from what I recall.
Groovy man
Interesting that the Dina Might and Take and Tape were in one commercial. There is a commercial video on here and I first assumed they were two separate commercials back to back.
At first I thought it was a TV. Until I saw the buttons!
Without seeing the back it really does look like it could be a portable B&W tv.
By today's standards. Not in 1970. TV screens were still square back then.
@@pegbars 🤣
That's a really cool looking I think you're right it looks similar to a purse LOL I noticed that commercial at the end it sounded like Gomer Pyle singing
All the best for the fix of Pansosnic RQ-J9.
I can't find a clean recording of that track by "Cassette" anywhere. You may need to share the whole track here on TH-cam!
+1 Would like to get an upload of that track!
I took matters into my own hands, bought the vinyl for the cost of shipping> th-cam.com/video/Qy3y8o_JArE/w-d-xo.html
@@5kogur any way you can digitize your copy? I like the song and would like a copy. Or if anyone can provide a link to a physical copy that's not vinyl..
@@5kogur nevermind! When I first looked at your video i thought you were recording off your external speaker shown in the video, before i realized it is digitized, lol.
The disco Wochika wochika guitar from cassette was most satisfying.
Hi there.Just fixed one of these last month..The red version ..All it needed is a good cleanup and a drive belt.. No recapping needed..
Sweet little unit, sounds alright for a 3 inch mono unit. 😎👍
Requiring both play and record buttons to be simultaneously pressed down to record was actually very common back in the day to prevent accidentally unintentionally recording over the tape. I’m kind of surprised you’d think of that as a quirk. Cool fun review though…
That actually sounds pretty good, for what it is!
Great video - love that last commercial.
Even though this is a low price "youth market" recorder, I gar-un-teee It's 300% better than even the "best" portable cassette players made now!
Dyn-o-mite!
I had a green one. Was very cute.
10% Wow & Flutter but you love those things.
I am wonder, how it stay pure white till yet ? Good voice and good collection, good design and a rare collection. TapeRecorder lover from India.
Different type of plastic. I don't know my plastics well but this one was designed to be "bright white" so they used a different type of plastic than the stuff that turns horribly yellow over the years.
Guess it was unknowingly lucky :)
I have all 4 colors of the Take-N-Tape
Lovely little machine!
Mine was bought in 1974 and grey. Mainly got used to record and play back lectures. I don't recall that level of distortion.
8:04 this is why I always check blank tapes (even *sealed & unused* ones) before recording on it. I had to play the whole thing because who knows what's on the tape. Maybe some kind of secret message or rare demos of popular songs.
So far it's just 60/90 mins of tape hiss ASMR.
Quite a smart looking deck great that the belts are still in good condition where on some later decks they are a horrid goo like mess that get,s everywhere .My 1976 mono phillips deck is still on its original belts and my 1988 bf52 sports walkman is on its original belts when many others have failed
That synth at the first track played reminds me a bit of the "VR Video Game" music in Futurama. Then again, they have used at least one other French band's song as inspiration for the opening theme song.
Great find again, Kevin 👍
Panasonic made a larger version of this complete with the explosive ejection mechanism. The record button was inserted into the play button, which was very easy to hit if you fat fingered it.
Yay a new video !!!! Interesting as ever Kevin
It actually wouldn't look too out of place in the 80s, even though it's from the mid 70s.
It looks mostly like mid 90s to me actually.
@@westelaudio943 I was thinking that it would have looked at home in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. Of course, that movie portrayed a very different future than the one we got.