Cassette Decks

A cassette deck is a type of tape recorder for playing or recording audio compact cassettes. A deck was formerly distinguished from a recorder as being part of a stereo component system, while a recorder had a self-contained power amplifier (and often speakers). more...

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While the two terms are often now used interchangeably, a recorder is typically thought of as a small low-fidelity portable device, while a deck is a sophisticated high fidelity component.

History

Origins

The cassette recorder was introduced by the Philips Corporation in 1963 and marketed in 1965 as a device for vocal dictation designed for portable use. It was not intended to be a replacement for reel-to-reel recorders. It enclosed both reels of the recording tape in a small case which eliminated the need to thread the tape through individual reels. The tape width was nominally ¹⁄₈ inch (actually 3.81 mm) and tape speed was 1.875 inches (4.76 cm) per second, which meant that sound quality was appropriate only for voice or dictation use at the time with high end response dropping off beyond 10 kHz and high noise levels.

Early recorders were hand held battery-powered devices with automatic gain control, intended for dictation and reporting, but by the mid 1970s, the cassette deck with manual level controls and VU meters became a commonplace component of home high fidelity systems. Eventually they replaced the reel-to-reel recorder, which had found only limited home use because of their large size, expense, and inconvenience of threading and rewinding the tape reels. A cassette can be removed in the middle of the tape without rewinding. Cassettes can also be used in automobile and personal portable applications. Users typically simply dub songs from records in sequence to make a "road tape".

In 1971, the Advent Corporation combined Dolby B-type tape-hiss-noise reduction system with chromium dioxide tape to create the Advent Model 201, the first high-fidelity cassette deck. Dolby B boosts treble levels well above the noise level, and reduces them on playback, while CrO₂ used different bias and equalization settings to do much the same, and extended frequency response into high fidelity range beyond 15 kHz for the first time. This deck was based on a top loading mechanism by Wollensak, a division of 3M which was commonly used in audio / visual applications. It featured an unusual single VU meter which could be switched between or for both channels, and lever operated controls, similar to those used on reel-to-reel mechanisms.

Most other manufacturers adopted a standard top loading format with piano key controls, dual VU meters, and slider level controls. There was a variety of configuations leading to the next standard format in the late 1970s, which settled on front-loading (see main picture) with cassette well on one side, dual VU meters on the other, and later a dual-cassette format with meters in the middle. Mechanical controls were replaced with electronic solenoid pushbuttons, though low cost models would retain mechanical controls. Some models could search and count gaps between songs. Cassette players pioneered the modern set of control buttons, play, pause, stop, record, and "locking" fast forward and rewind which could be depressed once, and remain until stopped.

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