On Mar 11, 9:00 pm, DeserTBoB wrote:
On Sun, 11 Mar 2007 16:56:18 -0700, DeserTBoB
wrote:

They were only in the audio stores for about six months or so around
1978, and withered quickly. snip

I looked in my manual file...I tried the Elcaset machine in November,
1978 and used it until I returned it to the rep in January, 1979. This
was before any of the big audio chains on the West Coast had ANY store
stock of them. Previous to this, if one wanted an Elcaset machine,
it'd have to be bought from Sony or one of a very few Sony dealers. I
remember Shelley's Audio had them, as did a couple of the other high
end stores in LA, around that time, but the biggies, like University
Stereo, Dow Radio, Federated and CBS' Pacific Stereo didn't carry
them...or much of anything else by Sony.

The Elcaset did get rolled out in late '76 in Japan, and, as usual
with the Japanese, they eagerly snapped up anything with the Sony logo
on it. "Sony no breakee" went the conventional logic of the Japanese,
when reality, of course, was a bit different. Just ask any broadcast
video tech who worked his fingers off trying to keep Sony tape
machines and cameras online! A friend of mine who was stationed in
Honolulu said that he saw them on Oahu for sale about six months
later, and I saw the first one offered in Federated's "high end room"
around spring of '79, never to be seen again. About that time, Audio
magazine did a write-up of the EL-7, as did Stereo Review. High
praise as a 3¾ IPS tape machine, but both write-ups pointed out the
format's flaws, as I'd already surmised. There wasn't an Elcaset
anywhere to be found in LA by late summer of '79, and Sony decided to
put their big push on Betamax.

Elcaset was a moderate seller in the UK, as well as a hit in Japan,
but was a spectacular flop everywhere else. As with a lot of Sony's
product line over the years, it was an idea in search of a market. I
do remember the Superscope rep stating that it was Sony's goal to
"overcome the clumsy handling of reel tapes with a new, high fidelity
format." All well and good...except that Philips was well on the way
to filling that market with a more desirable product, one that was
quickly reaching total market domination.


Yet in retrospect, the Elcaset has the obvious technical edge. Wider
tape + higher speed = improved fidelity over the Philips.

The Philips cassettes always sounded like a POS to me- no matter what
they were played on- the sound is blurred and they are high end
response challenged. The high-end response on a Philips sounds faked.

A dead format with more potential than either, is the 1950's RCA
cassette, which the Philips was based on. The RCA machines could be
adjusted to 1-7/8 or 3.75 IPS

which brings up the issue, there's nothing really new, just old ideas,
rehashed.

See the cassette formats compared here, the RCA cassette of the 1950's
was even larger than the Elcaset:

http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~cochi...tic-media.html

The RCA cartridge was large, 7 _ inches by 5 inches by _-inch thick
using _-inch tape at a selectable rate of 3.75 ips or 1 7/8 ips for
total recording times of 30 or 60 minutes respectively. The tape had
five openings along the bottom edge, two for capstans and three for
heads. The heads could be oriented differently by recorder type. On
some machines, recorded tracks could be selected with a switch labeled
"A" or "B", with the "A" side being stereo (or dual mono) tracks one
and three, and "B" occupying tracks two and four. In essence, this was
a four-track machine with all the tracks playing in the same
direction. The tape was configured in such a way that it was also
possible to record on each side of the tape with two tracks in each
direction. Oddly, the player had no way to fast-forward the tape. It
required flipping the tape over and rewinding it. The cartridge had a
notch in the back of the case that held a spring-loaded brake. When
the cartridge was not in the player, the brake kept the tape from
unwinding from the reel. This feature was unique to the RCA format.
Another interesting feature incorporated into the design was the use
of flangeless reels for spooling the tape. The sides of the case
served to keep the tape aligned. Despite being configured for home
playback and recording, the RCA cartridge machines were not widely
popular. The machines were too expensive for average consumers and
contained built-in amplifiers and speakers that serious audiophiles
did not want .