(sold for spare parts on eBay) to explore its inner workings.
References and Further info
One of my favourite YouTube channels is Techmoan. Mat has done a number of videos on the cassette, and on other contemporary tape formats, including the RCA cartridge.
Another favourite YouTube channel is Technology Connections, who as also done a video on the cassette tape, as well as the tape recorder in general. He has also done a video on Dolby Noise Reduction.
For those curious about the mechanics of tape recording, I suggest this resource from HyperPhysics.
The Foundations of Magnetic Recording - John C. Mallinson (Elsevier Science, 2012, ISBN: 9780080506821)
The Guinness Book of Recorded Sound - Robert & Celia Dearling (Guinness Books, 1984, ISBN:0-85112-274-4)
Magnetic Recording: The First 100 Years - C. Denis Mee, Eric D. Daniel, Mark H. Clark (Wiley, 1999, ISBN:9780780347090)
The History of Television, 1942 to 2000 - Albert Abramson, Christopher H. Sterling (McFarland, 2007, ISBN: 9780786432431) It covers the history of video tape by covering the invention of audio tape as well.
Compact Cassette supremo Lou Ottens talks to El Reg - Bob Dormon (The Register, 2013)
Lou Ottens interview - Spectrum (24th August 2013)
Compact Cassette Recorder Philips EL 3300 - Thank You for this Brilliant Compact Cassette Recorder - Lou Ottens - Johannes Jozeph Martinus Schoenmakers - Peter Van Der Sluis - (Books on Demand, 2018, ISBN: 9783741239069)
Grundig C 100 and the early history of the Compact Cassette - thegreatbear.net
The Little Cassette Deck That Changed the World: The Advent 201 - Greg Weaver (Positive Feedback, Issue 16, November/December 2004)
http://www.tapeheads.net/ - a forum for magnetic tape fans
www.vintagecassettes.com - An online catalogue of blank cassette packaging.
www.c-90.org - An online catalogue of cassette tapes. No technical information. Just images.
www.45spaces.com/audio-compact-cassette-blank-tapes - An online catalogue of cassette tape models. Very detailed.
museumofmagneticsoundrecording.org/CassetteRecorders
Cassette: A Documentary Mixtape (2016)
Cassette Cultures: Past and Present of a Musical Icon - John Z. Komurki, Luca Bendandi (Benteli, 2019, ISBN: 9783716518489)
Philips EL3302 at the Science Museum, London
https://compactcassettes.jp/index.html
https://www.cassetterecorder-museum.com/en/en.html
http://www.wikiboombox.com/tiki-index.php
DOLBY B, C, AND S NOISE REDUCTION SYSTEMS: Making Cassettes Sound Better (2004)
https://audiochrome.blogspot.com/2019/04/cassette-tape-comparative-measurements.html
This source from the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives covers the construction and issues of preserving magnetic tape. Fortunately, the tape used in all cassettes have been proven robust so far, but they have concerns over Type IV cassettes.
In the 1950s electronics manufacturers found that consumers
liked the record ability of tape recorders – but found reel-to-reel machines
too fiddly to use. People feared damaging the tape with their fingers. To make
the tape recorder experience more user-friendly, manufacturers placed the
spools of tape in a rigid protective “cassette” (French for “little box”).
Several forms of cassette were created, with the RCA cartridge of 1959 been the
first. At about the same time, Dr Peter Goldmark (inventor of the Vinyl LP)
proposed a single-reel cartridge format using 3.81mm wide tape. This later
became 3M’s Revere stereo tape cartridge of 1962. The format that eventually
became the standard most people used was a combination of those two formats -
the Compact Cassette, created by Philips in 1963. Its small size, compared to
other cassette designs at the time, helped it become a popular choice. It also
helped that Philips gave away the format’s patent, making it easy for manufacturers
to adopt it, leading to the creation of millions of cassette players of every
shape and size. By the 1980s (mostly thanks to the Sony Walkman), the cassette
was the main format most people used to listen to music. It also found other
uses at this time, such as a data storage medium for home computers. In the
1990s the CD and other digital formats soon ended its reign, later becoming an
historical relic of an analogue past, which has gained plenty of fans to cause
a revival in the 2010s.
Born – 30th August 1963
Price of blank C60 in 1967 - $2.65
Size – 10 cm × 6.3 cm × 1.3 cm
Tape Speed – 17/8 inches per second
(4.76 cm/s)
Maximum Possible Record Length – 90 minutes per side
TDK SA90 (c.1984)
The cassette pictured is a “Super Avilyn” C90 Type II “pseudochrome”
tape from TDK, made in the mid-1980s. Introduced in 1974, the TDK SA was the
company’s most successful cassette, offering great sound quality at an
affordable price ($1.54 each in 1986). The SA remained in production until
2012.
Pressure Pad
"The pressure should be very light, because the forces
inside the tape transport mechanism are kept as low as possible and any
disturbance originating from a different pressure on the tape can cause speed
irregularities. The phosphor-bronze spring which carries the felt pad had been
chosen to avoid eventual magnetism of a steel spring in the direct
neighbourhood of the recording head.” - Lou Ottens
Some early cassette tapes had their pressure pad glued down
on the mu-metal shield. Tapes later adopted the phosphor-bronze spring, to
ensure the tape is in contact with the play head.
Mu-metal Magnetic Shield
“The mu-metal screen serves as a shield against interference
that might be induced in the head during playback." - Lou Ottens
Mu-metal is a soft magnetic iron-nickel alloy, mostly used
to shield electronics against static electricity or low-frequency magnetism.
Shell
The rigid plastic shell comes in twos halves. These can be
neither screw-assembled (preferred by audiophiles, as it allows them to repair
cassettes), or heat-welded (cheaper and preferred by prisons, as the small
metal screws can be used in weapons).
Write-Protection Tab
The first cassettes didn’t have any form of
write-protection. As pre-recorded cassettes entered the market, write-protect tabs
were added. To make a cassette recordable, you have to break the plastic tab
that covers the notch. To prevent someone recording over it, you simply block
up the hole, using Sellotape tape, chewing gum, whatever’s at hand.
Tape Structure
The tape used in cassettes is made of a polyester-type
plastic base, which is then coated in magnetic material mixed with binder (to
make the material stick to the tape) and lubricant. The magnetic material comes
in four types of formulations (see right). Polyester tape can stretch before
breaking, which can distort recordings.
Tape Width
"The width was originated by CBS, as 0.15in and we
thought it wise to take over something that had been supplied to a big name as
CBS [manufactured by 3M].” - Lou Ottens
The tape in all cassettes is 3.81mm (0.15in) wide. Mono
recordings take up 1.5mm. Stereo tracks take up 0.6mm, with a 0.3mm gap
separating then each side, to prevent crosstalk. Separating the two sides is a
gap no greater than 0.81mm, but can be shorter. This track layout allows
mono-headed decks to play stereo recordings by just combining the two tracks.
Tape Speed
"As long as there was no technical revolution at stake,
international standardisation was a holy cow with Philips, and rightly so. Tape
speeds were standardised from 15, 7.5 ips, 3 ¾ IPS, 1 7/8
IPS. No reason for us to choose something out of that range." - Lou Ottens
The default tape speed of cassettes is 1⅞ ips (4.76 cm/s).
This speed was fine for speech (Philips’ intended application) but too slow for
music, if standard tape is used. They were tape decks that can record at faster
or slower speeds.
Tape Length (and Thickness)
Cassettes come in various lengths. Their length is usually
stated by their total capacity (both sides combined). For example, a “C90”
cassette records 45 minutes per side, adding up to 90 minutes in total. The
first cassettes Philips sold recorded 30 minutes per side, making them “C60s.”
But the smaller mass of the reels and mechanisms allows the use of tape that
would be too thin to use on reel-to-reel machines. With thinner tape longer
record times became possible – but they are limits. Not only it was more prone
to snapping, thinner tape can also cause “print-through,” where information can
be imprinted on another part of the tape while in the spool.
The tape in C30, C46 and C60 cassettes is 18 μm think.
Shorter tapes, such as the C10, were made for applications where a little was
needed to be recorded, such as computer programs.
The tape in C74 (introduced in 1980) and C90 cassettes
(introduced by Philips in 1966) is 12 μm thick. Been a popular size, most
cassette decks are engineered to work well with tape this thin. C74s were made
for those who wanted to dub their CDs, whose total record length is 74 minutes.
The tape in C120 cassettes (introduced by Philips in 1966)
is 9 μm think. Many deck manufacturers discourage the use of such thin (and
thinner) tape.
In 1972 TDK introduced the C180 cassette. It used tape 6 μm
thick. Tape so thin it was translucent. It didn’t sale well, due to its
tendency to jam and its lower playback signal compromising the calibration of
Dolby noise reduction. Most users recommended only using it to record speech.
It was discontinued in about 1982. They are rumours that a C240 cassette was
made, but judging what happened to the limit-pushing C180, there is high doubt
it was ever made.
Cassette Types
Initially made to record dictation, when it was realized
that people were using cassettes to record music manufacturers decided to
improve the tape inside to improve their sound quality. These formulations came
in four “types,” as specified by the International Electrotechnical Commission
(IEC) in 1979.
Type I “ferric” cassettes used tape coated in
iron oxide. The first ever cassettes were of this type. They were the cheapest,
but gave the least best sound quality. They were good at capturing low
frequencies, but not good at capturing higher frequencies. Most cassettes you’re
likely to encounter are of this type, because their cheap.
Ferric tape did improve over the years. The first tapes
were coated in pure, unmodified, coarse-grains (up to 0.75 μm in length) of
iron oxide. In 1968 TDK introduced the “Super-Dynamic” cassette, "The Tape
That Turned the Cassette into a High-Fidelity Medium," according to ads.
These “microferric” tapes were coated in uniformly needle-shaped, highly
orientable particles of iron oxide (around 0.25 μm in length). In 1973 Pfizer
began selling a patented microferric powder (MO 2228) that later became an
industry standard. With more particles closer together, these tapes produced
less hiss than earlier tapes. Also, in 1971 3M created ferric cassettes that
were doped with cobalt. These “Scotch High Energy” tapes had similar
performance of chrome tapes, leading to them been marketed as “superferric”
tapes. Later on, they improved to a point they rivalled metal tapes in sound
quality.
Type II “chrome” tapes are coated in chromium
dioxide or ferricobalt. To record, tape decks require circuits that can handle
about 50% higher bias current than used in ferric-only playing decks.
Introduced by BASF in 1971, Type II cassettes gave better sound quality in the
higher frequencies than Type I cassettes, but was not good at lower frequencies
(Type I’s strength). But the use of chrome required paying royalties to DuPont
(the inventors of chrome tape). In 1974, TDK and Maxwell introduced
“pseudochrome” ferricobalt tape cassettes, which have almost similar qualities
of that of chrome. “Pseudochrome” tapes (or “Avilyn” tapes, as they were
labelled) later dominated the market, due to Japanese tapes decks been
calibrated to work with them than actual chrome tapes. Many pre-recorded
cassettes back in the day were Type IIs.
Type III “ferro-chrome” tapes are a
combination of Type I and II, providing “the best of both worlds” when it came
to recording. The tape’s iron oxide base provides great bass and its chromium
oxide pigment coating provides great treble performance. Introduced by Sony in
1973, Type III cassettes were the most expensive …. Until Type IV cassette came
and took their “best on the market” position. Type III’s were only made by a
few tape makers, and didn’t sale well. By 1983, tape deck manufacturers stopped
making decks that supported Type III. Sony sold the last Type III cassettes in
Japan in 1988.
Type IV “metal” tapes are coated in fine pure
metal particles. Recording on them requires a special high-flux magnetic head
and high-current amplifiers. Introduced by 3M in 1979, they were the most
expensive type of cassette, but they gave the best sound quality. They were
mostly bought by professionals. They rarely sold to consumers.
Which Type?
What type of tape formulation you got can be identified by the pattern of holes on the cassette’s top surface. Many high-end cassette players from 1980 onward had a sensor that detected these holes to tell the player which type of cassette is been used for recording, and increased the bias current accordingly.
But not all cassettes follow the hole system, especially ones made before 1979. If that is the case, one sure way to identify which type of cassette you got is by noting the colour of the tape itself.
Inventing the Cassette
“The cassette is born from the clumsiness of a very clever
man.” - Willy Leenders, Production, Philips (from Cassette: A Documentary
Mixtape)
"Before the design of the Compact Cassette, we
developed our first battery-driven reel-to-reel portable recorder, the EL 3585
came out in 1958, I believe, and was very successful. The total production was
more than one million pieces. It made us confident that there would be a big
market for a smaller, pocketable battery recorder. …
The Japanese competition on the market consisted of small,
rim drive type reel-to-reel recorders of inferior reproduction quality and had
a battery life of only a few hours. Our group was working on ideas for a
successor of the EL 3585 and we were trying out different proposals for
cartridges and tape sizes and tape speeds." - Lou Ottens, Head of Product
Development, Philips Hasselt (1960-69)
“One morning our boss, Lou Ottens, calls us together. And
Ottens says: “Yesterday I was fidgeting with that dame reel-to-reel. We have to
think of something else.” He said, “we must make it more compact, which you can
carry around easily, and the tape spools have to be in the cassette.” That’s
how it started. And the idea came from Lou” - Hugo Vananderoye, Designer,
Philips (from Cassette: A Documentary Mixtape)
Lou Ottens (1926-2021)
Lou has been interested in technology since childhood. While
a teenager, during World War II, he built his own radio with a directional
aerial to avoid German jammers. He studied mechanical engineering at Technische
Hogeschool in Delft. After earning his degree in 1952, he joined Philips,
starting at the Department of Business Mechanization of the Main Industry Group
in Eindhoven. He transferred to Hasselt in 1957 and became their Head of
Product Development in 1960. Under his leadership, his team made Philips’ first
portable tape recorder and the compact cassette. He became director of Philips
Hasselt in 1969, then Director of Philips Audio in 1972, and Director of
Philips Video in 1979. He played a role in developing the Compact Disc.
RCA Sound Cartridge
RCA introduced the world’s first magnetic tape cassette
format in 1959. The RCA Sound Tape Cartridge was a clear attempt to make
reel-to-reel tape recorders more user friendly. The 137×197×13 mm cassette
contains two reels, holding 560ft of standard ¼ inch tape that was used in
reel-to-reels. It recorded 30 minutes of stereo per side in the same manner as
a reel-to-reel – two interleaved tracks at 3¾ inches per second. But it was
prone to jam when fast winding/rewinding and the high internal fiction drew too
much power to make it usable in a portable machine.
It didn’t do well, due to RCA’s slowness in making players
and licencing music for pre-recorded tapes, and the fact a cassette was more
expensive ($4.50 in 1960) than an open reel of 1,200ft of tape, which can
record 64 minutes per side at the same speed ($3.50 in 1960). The format was
discontinued as a consumer format in 1964, only continuing as format used in
education applications.
"The RCA cartridge had rather large recesses to
accommodate room for the recording head and the erase head. That makes three
holes where the tape is exposed when the cartridge is handled. We decided to
minimize the tape exposure, so we didn’t want any big holes in the upper or
lower surface of the cassette.
"As a result, the recording head, the erase head and
the pressure roller had to move in.” – Lou Ottens
Born – c. June 1959
Size – 137 x 197 x 13mm
Tape Width – 6.35mm (1/4 inch)
Default Tape Speed – 3.75 inches/second
Price of Blank Tape in 1960 - $4.50
Max. Poss. Record Length – 60 minutes per sides
3M Revere Stereo Tape Cartridge
In 1960 CBS Laboratories, headed by Dr Peter Goldmark
(inventor of the Vinyl LP) demonstrated their own audio cassette format. It was
a 3½ square inch cartridge, containing a single reel of 1/7-inch tape, which
recorded a hour of music at 17/8 inches per second on three tracks. When
loaded, its player pulls its tape out and self-threads to an internal take up
spool. When the tape finishes it self-rewinds and unthreads itself before
ejecting. Goldmark got tape manufacturer 3M interested, leading to them funding
a three-year project.
3M had been fed up with RCA’s delays in their cartridge
(which used their tape) and, using Goldmark’s prototype, decided to make their
own tape format. The Revere stereo tape cartridge, launched in 1962, is a
single reel cassette, containing 1/7-inch tape, recording 48 minutes of stereo
at 17/8 inches per second. This system proved that, with the right formulation,
you can record good sound on such tiny and slow tape. Grundig acquired a
licence for the format, but other major record companies didn’t bite. In the
end the format didn’t sale well – the tapes were cheap, but the mechanism that
played them were complicated and expensive to make.
Born – December 1962
Size – 95 x 95 x 13mm
Tape Width – 3.71mm (0.146in)
Tape Speed – 1 7/8 inch/second
Price of blank cartridge in 1963 - $4.75
Max. Poss. Record Time – 48 minutes
The Revere cartridge is designed to be stackable.
Philips EL 3583
However, in 1963 Philips negotiated with 3M to put their
format on the European market. That same year they launched the EL 3583
dictation machine, which used a single reel cartridge system similar to the 3M
system. Wherever there is a connection is speculative.
"When the RCA proposal came on our desk, and soon
afterwards the CBS tape size, we made a working sample of a tape deck based on
a shrunken sort of RCA cartridge with 20 minutes playing time and the CBS size
of tape. It worked surprisingly well.
"The guys from the commercial product management were very happy with the proposal, but were in favour of 30 minutes – and they were right. Our first point of departure had been a good speech quality, but with the obvious potential suitability for music quality it was better to choose for a space that would equal the possibilities of a long play record which is a maximum of about 30 minutes per side." – Lou Ottens
Otten’s Team
In the 1960s, Philips had three factories making tape
recorders. Eindhoven, Netherlands, made recorders for professionals. Vienna,
Austria, made large expensive consumer models. Hasselt, Belgium, focused on
smaller affordable consumer devices. The Compact Cassette project was headed by
Head of Product Development at Philips Hasselt factory Lou Ottens. He had
headed the team that developed Philips’ first battery-powered portable tape
recorder – the EL 3585 of 1962 (not 1958, as Lou recalled). His team “consisted
of mostly young people with experience in the design or manufacture of
record-playing and tape-recording equipment in Eindhoven-based groups. It was a
mixed group of Belgian and Dutch origin.”
"We were lucky that we could always fall back on the
knowledge available in the laboratories and factories of the research centre in
Eindhoven, 40 miles away. I am not sure how big the group was actually during,
say 1960. Maybe in total 40 people, including those working on record players.”
Ottens lead a team of about 10 or 12 workers to create a new
form of “pocket recorder.” It had to be small, inexpensive, use little power
(from batteries) and have decent sound quality. Originally, they planned to use
the RCA format, but Lou though it was too big and its tape speed too fast for
their “pocket recorder.” So, Philips eventually decided to make a new cassette
format, using RCA’s as a template. Lou set a goal for the team by cutting a
wooden block that fitted in his jacket pocket and making it the size of the new
recorder.
Sanyo Tape Cartridge
Such an imitation was made by Sanyo. The 107 x 67 x 12 mm
cassette uses the same tape as Philips. Americans may have bought this format,
as it was licenced and sold by Sears department stores as the “Sears Tape
Cartridge”
"Because our aim was to make a pocket recorder, it
should fit into the side pocket of my tweed jacket. I made a wood block that
fitted in my pocket. That does not mean that carrying the actual recorder in my
jacket was very comfortable or advisable." – Lou Ottens
First Impressions (and Imitations)
Philips unveiled the Compact Cassette (and, initially
branded “Magnetophone,” player) at the Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin on
Friday 30th August 1963. It didn’t cause a big stir at the time. Few took
interest in Philips’ new idea. The only notable attention it got then was from
some Japanese people who photographed it.
“They photographed everything. Apparently, the photos caused
an explosion at their home, because imitations of our cassette, all slightly
larger, soon came out from Japan. Then we said ‘It won’t work like that, this
is going to be a mess, we have to go to Japan.’” – Lou Ottens
And so, in 1965, a delegation made up of Lou Ottens,
commercial colleague Gerrit Gazenbeek, and then manager of the Philips Far East
Division (later CEO of Philips) Wisse Dekker came to Japan. With a demo model,
they spent three weeks convincing Japanese electronics manufacturers to adopt
the cassette properly.
“The Japanese were allowed to adopt the model without paying
royalties, if they paid for the technology of the cassette recorder.” – Lou
Ottens
But then came a spanner in the works….
Philips and Grundig’s other Cassette
Lou’s team were not alone in creating a cassette tape format
for Philips….
“Simultaneously with colleagues in Hasselt, Philips in
Vienna worked together with the German Grundig on the development of a luxury
cassette recorder. They didn’t know that we were looking for a cheap, portable
variant in Hasselt.” – Lou Ottens
From 1961, the team in Vienna were working on a format,
similar to the 3M Revere stereo tape cartridge, called the Einloch-Kassette
(German for “single-hole cassette”). It used 3.81mm wide tape, played at a
speed of 17/8 inches per second, stored in a single spooled cartridge. Like
3M’s format, its player also self-fed its tape to an internal take-up spool.
“When our tape recorder arrived and the presentation in Berlin
approached, we wondered: shouldn’t Grundig be informed? But Philips management
did not consider that necessary. The Germans were only informed a few weeks
before the start the start of the IFA. Grundig was furious, immediately stopped
the collaboration and gave the order to develop a better, own cassette as soon
as possible.” – Lou Ottens
DC International
Using drawings Philips gave to them, in the hope they would
collaborate, Grundig created the similar-looking DC International format.
Launched in the 1965 Stuttgart Funkaustellung, the “Double Cassette” is
slightly larger than the Compact Cassette (120 x 77 x 12mm). Its 3.81 mm wide
tape is double-sided and ran at a slightly higher speed (2-inches per second).
It was made for music from the start, with a library of pre-recorded tapes at
launch. It could record in stereo, but no machine was made to do so when it was
discontinued in 1967. But during its short life, the DC format played a major
role in making the Compact Cassette the ubiquitous format it became.
Born – August 1965
Price of a blank DC 120 tape at launch – 15 Deutsche Mark
Size – 120 x 77 x 12mm
Tape Speed – 2 inches/second
Maximum Possible Record Length – 60 minutes per side
“When we came to Norio Ohga, Sony’s head of the Audio Department, he told me that he had been called by Max Grundig a week earlier. He had offered him the Grundig system for nothing.” – Lou Ottens
The Deal
Ohga wanted the Philips format to begin with, but wanted to
negotiate the royalties, using the DC format as a bargaining chip, despite
protest from his colleagues. Grundig had approached Sony to collaborate on the
DC format back in the 1963 IFA. Sony declined, but Grundig continued developing
it with an eye on Sony adopting it.
Initially, Philips wanted 20 yen for every machine Sony sold
in Japan. Sony declined. Then they reduced the offer to 6 yen per machine. Sony
declined again. Then Ohga mentioned Grundig’s offer. This pushed Philips to
drop the licence fee and give Sony the format for free.
“In retrospect, Ohga bluffed and Grundig tried to take
revenge.” – Lou Ottens
First Cassette Player
The first cassette tape recorder was the Philips EL3300.
Released in October 1963, it is an affordable easy-to-use portable tape
recorder aimed at the average person. Designed by Hugo Vananderoye, it’s a
polystyrene box measuring 113 x 56 x 196mm and weighing 1.35kg. It came with an
external Philips EL3797 microphone, recorded in mono, and played back to a 6cm
wide internal speaker. It can be carried in a tailor-made leather carry case or
used in the car in a purpose-made car holder that mounts under the dashboard.
It’s powered by 5 size C 1.5volt batteries (for about 20 hours) or can be
powered by the mains via a 7.5volt power adaptor.
“It is hardly bigger than a cigar box and yet offers all
recording and playback options like a large device.” – Philips tape recorder
catalogue on the EL3300 (1963-4)
Affordable Tape Recording for the Average Joe
“We, as a product development group, were aimed at the lower
price range of the gramophone and recording market. New product proposals
should therefore be cheap, small, have a low battery consumption, together with
an appropriate reproduction quality.” – Lou Ottens
When launched in the UK the EL3300 sold for 26 guineas
(£27.30 in 1964). It wasn’t the cheapest of tape recorders at the time
(Dansette sold a “portable” reel-to-reel for 22 guineas in about 1964).
In the US, the EL3300 was rebadged as the Norelco Carry
Corder Model 150, and Radio Shack sold it for $89.50 in 1967. At the same time,
Americans could buy an Archer portable reel-to-reel tape recorder for $14.95.
Of course, reel-to-reels had been around long enough to get this small and
cheap. But it didn’t take long for the Compact Cassette to catch up, thanks to
the non-exclusivity deal and free royalties. In 1969 Radio Shack sold the
Realistic CTP-1 portable cassette player for $21.95.
One factor to the Compact Cassette’s success was how it
was marketed. Before, RCA, 3M and other earlier cassette formats were marketing
their products to the Hi-Fi enthusiast who would be willing to pay more for
stereo. But this proved silly, as those Hi-Fi enthusiasts would already have
reel-to-reel machines that recorded at a better quality than the cassettes they
were offering. Philips aimed the Compact Cassette at the average Joe who didn’t
mind that much about sound quality, as long as it’s good enough for what they
want to use it for.
Cassettes for Everyone
The royalty-free deal with Sony was finalized in 1966. One
part in the deal with Sony was non-exclusivity. This meant that anyone who
wanted to make a Compact Cassette tape or player can do so without paying a
penny to Philips, creating competition. This directly led to the development of
many cassette players and improvements on the format.
Philips did a few improvements themselves, with the first
stereo cassette player, the EL3312, and the first radio cassette
player/boombox, the 22RL962, in 1966. But others soon beat them in a number of
ways. The first cassette player made for cars was the Blaupunkt Snob 100 of
1967. Philips made their first, the RN582, in 1968. By then Philips had sold 2
million cassette recorders.
The Cassette goes Hi-Fi
Then came audio engineer, and president of the Advent
Corporation, Henry Kloss. The first tape deck designed to use chrome tape is
the Advent 201. Introduced in 1971, it is also the first tape deck to have
Dolby B Noise Reduction built-in. With chrome tape and Dolby B combined, the
record quality of the cassette shot up dramatically. Pre-recorded music
cassettes had been available since 1965, but the 201 pushed the cassette into
Hi-Fi territory.
Then Came the Walkman
Sony continued making small portable cassette recorders,
making their first (the TC-100) in 1966. They pushed the device’s
miniaturization, creating smaller pocket-size cassette players, until reaching
the milestone Sony Walkman in 1979. The Walkman is credited for tripling sales
of cassette tapes in the early-1980s and the cassette outselling vinyl records
from 1984, only to be outsold by CDs from 1992. And that’s just in the US
alone. Despite its decline of use in rich territories of high technology, in many
poorer places, with limited internet access, the cassette is still king, as of
2020.
“The Walkman was the ideal application for the audio
cassette. It still hurts that we didn’t have it.” – Lou Ottens (2013)
Philips EL3312 (1966), first stereo cassette recorder
Philips 22RL962 (1966), first radio-cassette recorder / boombox
Sony TC-100 (1966), Sony’s first cassette recorder
Mercury AP8300 (1967), first stereo cassette player for cars
Blaupunkt Snob 100 (1967), first cassette player made for
cars
Philips RN582 (1968), Philips’ first car cassette player
Crown CSC-3950M (1968), first stereo boombox
Sony TC-50 (1968), a pocket-sized cassette recorder that
went to the Moon and became the basis of the Walkman
Advent 201 (1971), first cassette deck made to use chrome
tape and to have Dolby noise reduction built-in
AIWA AD-7600 (1975), note the angle of the cassette
Yamaha TC-800GL, designed by Mario Bellini (1975)
Clarion MD-8080 (1977), first twin cassette deck
Sony TPS-L2 “Walkman” (1979)
Amstrad 7090 (1979), first affordable twin deck
Victor KD-A6 (1979), first cassette deck made to use metal tapes
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