Rare Concord F-120 cassette auto changer

Manufacturing of components would be a huge cost factor today. So many of the parts in these original units were extremely well made. The original VCR's are definitely 1st cousins of the analog audio recorders that came before them Very little thin plastic or cheap metal components were used. The Panasonic changer has polished aluminum, chromed metal accents/buttons, a nice wood veneer case with an incredible unique industrial design weighing 55lbs. What amazes me most is how many units I have in my collection that still just work after 50yrs.... Some of them even have original belts installed! It's hard for me to imagine much of anything that's made today working after healthy use 50yrs from now.

We definitely live in a disposable society today. Most everything mass produced is either built to become obsolete within 5yrs or to fail within 10. Don't get me wrong, I very much appreciate modern technology and what's possible because of it. I work in audio and the things that are possible today are mind boggling. Most would have said would be impossible even 20yrs ago. But few things today feel like they have a soul to them like the earlier technology did. Perhaps that's why folks seem to collect so much stuff from that time period.

The cool thing is cassettes have made a comeback in recent years. Believe it or not there are still millions of cassettes being manufactured in the US today. All by one company but they do a heck of a business! Who would have thunk a lot of young people (who mainly grew up with ipods) would be giving cassettes a resurgence in popularity?!? Similar to what happened with vinyl originally after CD's became the new standard. Now CD's are mostly worthless but vinyl and cassettes are coveted again with a small but very strong support bases.

I worked on a documentary film several years ago all about the history and culture of the cassette. It stars Lou Ottens (the creator of the compact cassette medium and first cassette recorder) along with many interviews from musicians and the likes reflecting on what made that little cassette tape so successful for so long. A very entertaining watch. Here's the trailer....

 

When audio gear was a significant investment people expected it to last.

Rather than repeat an old story about my Mothers mono Sanyo Radio Cassette Recorder you can read it here

http://www.stereo2go.com/topic/index.php?content_oid=499377108813478439&board_oid=193392314111653326

Feeding the price through the Bank of England inflation calculator I get £463 in 2019 money. The student teacher who got one for her 21st Birthday was a lucky girl.

p.s I agree with Mister X that it would be great to see the whole film. Was it ever released on DVD ?

 

@Mister X You should be able to stream the film online through Amazon, iTunes and others. Looks like you can even purchase/watch directly through youtube too.

What exactly was the pocket calculator website? Sounds interesting. A precursor to the modern forums like this?

@Longman I do believe there is hard media available too. Blu-Ray, I believe..... Yep! here it is. I should buy one too while I'm thinking about it. Director never sent me one. https://www.ebay.com/p/245848476?ii...MIx9_V7pbn5wIVCv5kCh0RJQ0eEAQYAiABEgLWo_D_BwE

Rollins is in the film quite a bit. He's great in it! All of his statements really make you think. He has the same passion and intensity as his music. @Mister X - I love that you were listening to Damaged on the way to the ice rink! That's perfect! And yes, the grittiness of the medium is an ideal match for that music. It was as real as the people who recorded to them. No studio required.

I used to walk around with a portable recorder when I was 6 or 7yrs old, recording everything I could. The TV, our dogs barking, conversations with friends, imitating new casts and just acting silly. As an sound guy by trade, it was my introduction to audio and likely why I ended up doing what I do for a living. Also why I decided to start collecting them. They are personally important to me!

Were it not for the cassette, an entire generation of music/bands would have gone undiscovered. It was a very inexpensive and easy medium to record too yourself. Before the cassette, you needed access to much more expensive and less accessible equipment. And thus, the garage demo was born! Bands could sell their cassettes at shows, send them to record companies and radio stations, launching bands careers and even helping create/make popular entire genre's of music like hip hop, punk and metal. It was the peoples medium. While often overlooked for its importance and criticized for it's quality limitations, were the cassette not invented when it was, what would the world look like today? It's a fun question to think about. The film covers a lot of those ideas and reflections.

I did the sound design for the film and used cassette recordings of all types to decorate the b-roll shots in the film. Cassettes I found in thrift stores, old answering machine tapes and more. I even recorded/transferred sounds on to cassettes and back again, just to add a bit of the gritty, hissy analog cassette quality to everything. So most all the creative sounds used for sound design touched a cassette at some point. Also used a few players for manual playback speed/pitch control. I even recorded several of my vintage decks for motor sounds, buttons, mechanisms, handling sounds and more. I also recorded oodles of cassette tape and case handling, touching, dropping, shaking, rattling, etc. So anytime someone picks up a tape or touches one on screen, you can hear that cassette handling sound that's embedded in our auditory memory. We can hear it even now! I had a blast working on that project!

Yes, that Panasonic is a beast!! Largest piece of vintage equipment I own... Except for the Panasonic Spartan SE 970 'convertible' turntable from around the same era. And another uniquely designed piece from Panasonic! Photos below...

There's one that just posted to ebay us today. Its in the price range it should be but hard to tell the true condition.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Panasonic-...268727?hash=item2ae20f20f7:g:jIgAAOSwVc9eUJ1x
Cosmetics seem good but photos don't show the veneer panels/casing. I, personally, would want to the seller to provide additional photos there. Sounds like it an original owner piece though, which is always good. Comes from a church and has been sitting in a closet or storage somewhere, by the sound of it. Cover looks to be pretty well scratched but that can be remedied with scratch polishing/removing solutions and even toothpaste works well for removing light scratches on vintage plastics. So long as the cover's not cracked or chipped. It of course needs maintaining (plays tapes slowly) but no surprise there. If you really wanted to pick one, this looks to be a decent choice. Not in terrible shape or missing the accessory parts most of the are. So it does value real value if the wood veneer is good. Prices do seem to be increasing for most examples. 4yrs ago a nice one was going for $300. Ever since they've been climbing steadily. The most expensive unit I've seen sold for $2100 early last year. It was in the top 2 condition wise Ive seen come up for sale since I've been collecting.

@Longman I love that blog post with your old units and timeline! A wonderful idea! I wish I had my original pieces. I think the first one I used was a realistic/radio shack cassette recorder. The Amerex unit you have photographed is awesome! I love the foe wood cassette door and patina! Like a vintage car that shows it's natural age and use. You still have this unit? I'd put wrap it in bubble wrap and put it in a box as a time capsule. It's a genuine piece of your history. Also a brand I've never heard of or seen... Must be a euro only brand I'm guessing? Thanks for sharing!!

 

Here's one that just popped up on ebay.us Price is much more reasonable/on par and not missing the cover.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Panasonic-...268727?hash=item2ae20f20f7:g:jIgAAOSwVc9eUJ1x

 

Yes I still have the Amerex, but as explained in the Timeline post it is not my original unit. Having set myself the challenge of getting a replacement, I had a saved search on ebay for three or four years before one came up. It was actually a buy it now at about £20 so I didn't hesitate to get it and actually paid the seller a bit more to send it by a more reliable courier. I think I saw one more about a year later before I cancelled the search.

My original unit was actually bought in Laskys, a fairly large chain of HiFi stores so I'm sure that they must have sold quite a few while they were on the market. Someone reckoned Amerex was an offshoot of Toshiba. They were definitely a brand of the 1970s, who actually seemed to make far more 8 track players than cassette recorders. For every Amerex cassette recorder that appears on Ebay there are probably five 8 tracks.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CLASSIC-...161358?hash=item3b41b0928e:g:WD4AAOSwCN5dn48S

It is interesting that this advert seems to link them to RCA (who might have been badging equipment from the same factory.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-Repl...769715&hash=item23b0e6d58e:g:n34AAOSwcLxYCSjQ

In the UK the only RCA products you would find in the shops were records and pre-recorded tapes.


All the other cassette recorders in the timeline are the families originals, bought new. As we are clearing my late parents house (a long job), I might be adding a Sony CFS210L which my Mother bought to replace the Sanyo, and if my sister doesn't want it a Panasonic SG-J500 that looks to be the grandchild of your big Panasonic.

http://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/triple-take-it-on-the-run-baby.1564/page-2

This one (which I hadn't seen before) looks even closer

http://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/panasonic-triple-take-boombox-with-turntable.3106/


I agree about cassettes being an important part of indie bands. While at college in the early 80s, a fellow student's band hired a cheap recording studio for a few hours and then got a 100 cassettes duplicated. I still have a copy somewhere. However, even before cassettes my Aunt was into recording sounds, like the animals at the zoo using a reel to reel recorder. I don't know where she got power as the one I remember her having was mains only.

Even if magnetic recording had never been invented something else would have filled the gap. In 1966 or 1967 my sister and I (with parents paying and supervising) made a direct cut record of us singing The Beatles "Yellow Submarine" in a recording booth in Bristol's main railway station. An audio equivalent of the Photo Booths that you still get in Railways Stations etc. A bit more information on them in the link below.

https://magazine.vinylmeplease.com/magazine/history-those-recording-studio-booths/

Finally be careful with Bubblewrap. Only last week I saw a technics record deck on Ebay withe bubble wrap marks all over the cover. The same thing happened at work with CRT monitors with anti-glare coatings on the screen.

 

Tapedood. In your last couple of posts I think you have deleted the square bracket slash QUOTE square bracket (I woun't use the actual characters in case they are mis-interpretted) from the end of the post you are quoting. Therefore your text is just running on from the quote and can't be seen unless you "click to expand".

The main problem many forums have had is internet service providers changing their fees or rules. Yahoo have just deleted all their groups after just a couple of months notice. I was in a group about the Sony ICF2010 shortwave receiver that contained literally hundreds of posts on how to fix them, date them from the S.No etc.

How many broken picture links do you get due to Photobucket suddenly deciding to charge people to host their photos ? One member here couldn't even download her own photos, getting a message that she had to start a paid for account to do that.

Stereo2Go used to run on the Hoopla platform which was getting expensive. Hugo did get a archive dump of all the data before closing the account. About a year later a (then) new member Michelle Knight, who does things like databases for her day job worked out how to make the archive readable by setting up the forum reader.

Searching for things here I have always found Google seems to have a much better view of the site than the internal search.

I am sure that part of the appeal of old formats like cassettes are their longevity and compatibility. Last night I was playing a tape that was 25 years older than the Walkman I was playing it in. More about that to come.

What are the chances of your favourite streaming service still being around in 35 years? Netflix keep deleting sometimes famous films (e.g. Home Alone), either by their choice, or because they have lost the rights to them. That never used to happen with VHS or DVD

 

Just in Goodwill, saw the aforementioned GE M9000A. They wanted $25 for it. They couldn't have paid me to take it off their hands, but it was interesting to see. For those in Phoenix, if you want it, it's at the Goodwill on Scottsdale Road I guess near Thunderbird(?).

Just found an article in 1971 Billboard that mentions this machine for $450. In 2020 dollars that's about $2,800.00 Yikes!!!

 

Are you sure you are on the right forum ? . Says the person who didn't buy a Sharp VZ1500 at a Charity shop for a similar price (although I had walked into town about two miles away).

For people wondering what the mysterious GE M9000A looks like here is an article
https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/g-e-model-m9000a-cassette-carousel.15111/

Regarding prices someone spending that sort of money was the equivalent of someone buying an 85" TV today, or a 16" portable in 1971, which was slightly cheaper but not by much.

 

Really I stared at it for about a minute, and then my more responsible self kicked in. I have a stack of vintage stereo components that are unplayed because of current circumstances, which is a too small house and little kids. The GE is a BIG piece of gear and I literally would have no place to put it and no time to fix it up. But it sure was cool, in it's own time-capsule way. One extra-cool thing: It didn't have an "Eject" button, it had a "Reject" button.

 

You just reminded me of the television set I grew into my teens with: A Sears color portable, that my parents got on discount because it was discontinued & a display unit. It sat atop a Curtis-Mathes Kingshire much like this:

Sadly, when the radio part failed, my dad relegated it to the crawlspace... where it literally rotted until it was finally thrown-out.

And speaking which, and...

Been there... on a rainy day, and an open-bed pickup. I spotted a resale shop near the neighborhood of a friend's family, and decided to stop-n. In it was a beautiful old Grundig console in maple, with a Marantz 5-disc carousel atop it. The carousel chattered as it turned (belts) but the Grundig just buzzed loudly as it's tubes warmed-up. (Transformer failure, I now guess....) I passed on the Grundig and took the Marantz, to upgrade from my Technics SL-P1, which I'd much later regret doing. I too, like you, hope the Grundig found a better fate than that old Curtis-Mathes my parents got when the married... which they also got for a discount, since Grandpa worked as an engineer in the building where the shop it came from was in.

 

Man... all this talk about auto-changing cassette players reminds me of a mention of such a thing in a book I read. Only difference: The book referred to open-reel tapes.