Feel free to post your recording units, these are some of my favorites. When I was a youngster in the 80's they were very expensive so none of my friends had one. It wasn't until the early 2000's that I found my first AIWA Recording Portable, then I had the bug, now I have several. First off I consider a true field recorder to be something like the Technics RS-646DS, basically a large tape deck that can use batteries meant for recording outside of the studio. But don't let cassettes limit you, there were a ton of reel to reel portables that came out earlier, some like the Nagra's and Uher's are amazing. Feel free to post your boomboxes in full recording mode, if you have the ultra-evasive mics and mounts please post! And don't forget the little Walkman Recording Models, AIWA and Sony pretty much led the pack but the others put in some great efforts. This one is one of the largest cassette field recorders and my largest, the Technics RS-646DS. This is classic Technics Design with a dark chocolate brown finish. The front rail guards the controls and probably used for a strap handle. The sides with the screw heads are metal to protect the sides. It's heavy too, much more than a component tape deck, I haven't opened it up (it works), but it has a ton of guts in it. This Technics had a little brother, the RS-686, I have never seen one come up for sale but this model does a few times a year.
How about an early one, Autoreverser got me turned on to UHERs. I can't afford a Nagra but these pop up for reasonable if you look long enough. This one was really popular in the early 60's, the UHER 4000 Report, mine's fully working on five D-cell batteries, there's no other power option. This is a really nice all-metal unit with a front that looks like a car dashboard from the late 50's, tons of chrome. My crappy photo doesn't do it justice. Speed is controlled by the super-cool shifting knob on the right, unfortunately some idiot didn't know you have to push, then move the lever. When I have to open it up, I'll bend the fingers back. This one came out of Sandia Military Base where they developed nuclear missile technology. The leather case says "Motion Picture Production" on it. The tape has a few seconds of garbled talking, some music then mostly nothing. Here's a cool spy website highlighting this model used extensively by spies world-wide. https://www.cryptomuseum.com/covert/rec/uher/report/index.htm
Oh, Boy! I am not sure I need a field recorder but I sure need to go back in time and get literate in music!!! For when you wake-up with a tune in your head but do Not know how to write it down... In my case this is extra-pathetic because I clearly remember placing those cut-outs on the scales which my mommy made for me, even before I could read!!!!!!
I started carrying around a tiny metal-clad notebook with pen so I can jot down ideas, of course for sounds I have that throughly covered.
Love my TC-D5M. The best sounding Sony portable, bar none! Haven't used it to record anything 'in the field' so to speak, but I have actually played it 'in a field'.
I might have posted this before but check out http://www.dustygizmos.com/arcpages/arctape.htm for lots of miniature Reel to Reel tape recorders from that era.
There's some super-neat players on that site, the "Bookcorder?" Yea I'd love to find some of those, most of mine were more popular so they tend to pop up for sale more often. Love the D5 Chris_D, it's on my list but they tend to go for good money. They seem to be close in size to the Marantz PMD 430/420 but issued years before.
I don't know the history of the smaller recorders but the Sony WM-R2 is one of the smallest and neatest looking Walkmans and has to be one of the first at this size. Like the D6 it just looks a little more heavy duty then contemporary players, and probably is with all-metal body. A true field recorder usually has a tape counter, which this does on the top, and doesn't include a radio, but I'm sure there were a lot of radio-recorders out there, especially when they get boombox size. There were two basic recorders, the guys recording songs off the radio and the professionals recording ambient sounds.
To show my point, Sony also released the WM-F2 Walkman the same year. I'm going by the information on The Pocket Calculator Show https://www.pocketcalculatorshow.com/walkman/sony/ You could go through the ads in the newspaper thread below to confirm. This unit has an FM only radio and only a jack for mics. It seems to be aimed more at the everyday consumers. Both of these Walkmans have two headphone jacks and even the WM-R2 has an jack for an external microphone. The WM-F2 is slightly larger than the WM-R2 but smaller than it's main competitor, the AIWA HS-J02. To be fair, the AIWA has a few more features built into it but the Sony is so much sleeker looking. When I get some time I'll edit in pricing, it would be interesting to see where these early units were priced.
Nice and it has a radio, maybe the only one with that body style. The output must be stereo for the radio as well. Do you have any catalog pages Reli? Sony's might be the coolest with the matching amp, I don't think any of these others had that option.
Here's some info on a few of those models and the Sony Model everyone lusts after, it also has a tuner. Anybody have the Matsushita RS4400? It looks a lot like one of the Sencor's. He calls it that in his write up but it is a National Panasonic. https://plaza-harmonix-ne-jp.transl...h=http&_x_tr_sl=ja&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US
I don't have any Nakamichi Portable Recorders, I won one once and the seller never shipped it. From a Japanese Website that bite the dust a few years ago.... The 350 and 250 were set up for car stereo use as well, some of these Japanese Names were a mouthful in the 70's Nakamichi was one of them.
I was tempted to buy a Nak 550 a couple of times but shyed away due to the sheer size and weight of it. Tehy're also impossible to repair when they go pop due to unobtanium parts. I think it's probably superior to my TCD5M (maybe), but in my view it is nowhere near as portable being almost the size of a fullsize cassette deck and 5 times as heavy with the battery packs inserted. The 250 and 350 look interesting. Never seen those before.
Here's some more information on the 350 and 250, they have shown up for sale on Ebay but it's rare. https://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/ads-2002-the-portable-nakamichi-from-1978.5047/
there‘s a minty Nak 350 on german local Ebay right now: https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s...buttons&utm_medium=social&utm_content=app_ios now how do you definate a „field recorder“ ? a (tape-) recording unit for professional or semi-professional use, prefably solid built and/or rugged, water-protected or tough built in any other way ? i would say that hits the point, finally not necessarily stereo (?)
Scored my 2nd TC-D5M at the weekend. Newer and in better condition than my first example which is a bonus but it came with 2 minor issues which were easily rectified.Well, relatively easy to rectify. A scratchy volume pot which just needed a suirt of contact cleaner and a faint ticking noise, fixed by a few drops of PRF7-78 onto a pulley shaft. Now 100% and serving its' purpose as my backup until the original one stops working....
