Soviet cassette tape recorder Bashny.Net

Music in the USSR was considered a sort of luxury and excess.
Having a cassette tape - it was very cool.
Buy it was not easy, nor cheap.
For example, this beauty called cassette tape "Spring-211-1 Stereo" with the speakers cost 365 rubles!
In a typical salary of 120 rubles! Three monthly salary for an ordinary device for playing cassette!
And some high-end reel tape recorder and could cost much more expensive.




Secondly, a considerable problem was to buy a model that will not break in the first month of work, which happens quite often. "The Soviet material - soft thing" - said one of the heroes of Platonov, and Soviet recorders is applied in full.

However, in fairness, I must say that by the mid-80s in the Soviet Union learned to produce pretty good reel tape recorder. They rarely broke down and were given a good sound. But who train in those days wanted to reel tape recorder? They were bulky, non-transportable, even the process of filling the film required some skill. And most importantly, by the time the reels rapidly supplanted by cassettes. In general, adolescents reel tape recorder was considered a hopeless anachronism. Or, at least, the thing for fans of electronics.



But with cassette recorders things were tight. All right, they were horrendous design (see. Picture above - is not it, how exquisite the "suitcase" Spring?). The worst part was that they were hideously unreliable in operation. Normal operation of the Soviet cassette - one repair service center to the next.

Says a lot about this fact. Manufacturers in the guarantee states that if in the first year of operation the product will undergo repair service center specified number of times (or five, or six), the buyer will be able to exchange it for free to the new model. That is a manufacturer initially admitted that its product can be broken five times in the first year! And many of my friends have taken advantage of this right - their recorders broke just the right amount of time.

To clarify that it was not about Kaki some minor breakages like dumps button. This change corrected at home. It should be noted that the mechanical control buttons, probably designed by engineers specifically to take leisure consumer. They are constantly falling out, sank, fell away, etc. Moreover, they were of very artful construction of springs, peredatachnyh levers, pulleys. Sometimes as much marveled, how he could reach the engineering thought in an effort to complicate simple!

Probably champion breakdowns were nightmarish hybrid recorder, radio and record player. These bulky monsters were far more "bottlenecks" than conventional tape, so bring a huge amount of trouble to their owners. But one of the more or less reliable models of the middle class was a line of tape "Mayak».



These cassette decks cost without speakers, if I am not mistaken, 200 rubles with something. Probably wrong to say that they do not break. Of course, we broke! But compared to many other models, they would say that, increasingly yielded to repair people's means - for example, kicks to the body. Either breakdowns simple method: disassembled, reassemble and everything works. Sometimes we had to resort to more clever tricks.

For example, you can often be seen in the houses, like a tape recorder is at an angle, as under its leg something framed. It turns out that he could only work in a tilted position (tilt angle calculated empirically). Or, on the contrary, the tape started to work only if it was loaded on top of a heavy pile of books. But the most striking design I saw one fellow.

He had a tape to stick the spoon, and the spoon to put little weight to weight. Only when these crutches manitofon worked. Nevertheless, if the "Lighthouse" could somehow work with all these ridiculous methods, the aforementioned "Spring" and nearly died completely on any poultice did not react.



But riding desire, of course, the Japanese were tape - Sharp, Sony, Panasonic. They stood proudly on the shelves komissionok, showing off the gorgeous price tag. From Soviet counterparts they differed far off eye-catching design, and most importantly, many of them were double cassette - unusual uncommon for Soviet technology, which is very appreciated during dubbing from tape to tape.

By the way, the Soviet tapes were much curiosity pohlesche Soviet recorders. More unfortunate thing was hard to find.

Oddly, but in the USSR cassettes were not deficient. It was a rare occasion when a product that could potentially be in short supply, sold everywhere, but at that price, which excluded any hype. In any store "Radio products' shelves were lined with imported cassettes of different brands Stoneley they are exactly the same regardless of the manufacturer - nine rubles per 90-minute cassette. The price by today's standards, of course, quite awkward. Monthly salary of 120 rubles engineer can be in style vbuhali already 13 tapes!

However, you can not show off, and modest buy cassettes of domestic production - four rubles a Thing. But what was this tape! The song, not the tape! If a wound in the State Planning Commission mishandled Cossack, who directly ordered the tapes to producers - to "make such a tape, make it their very existence would be defamed Soviet industry" - he would be extremely happy with what we got. As it turned out not even "as always", but much worse.

When the Soviet cassette lying on the counter next to their imported counterparts, she gave the impression of not even a poor relation, no! Rather, some podzabornaya profligate, gently attach to the tail of a decent company. To begin with the title. Imported tapes called sonorous name manufacturers - Basf, Denon, Sony, Toshiba, TDK, Agfa. Soviet bastard was named without the slightest glimmer of imagination - MK, that meant nothing, as the audio cassette. It is strange that no CM - cassette magntifonnaya.



Appearance of the namesake Moskovsky Komsomolets was terrible. Imported tapes packaged in colorful plastic wrap, under which is the same colorful shells. Their Soviet cousin sold at all without wrappers, and the design used mainly gray and brown tones ryzhye. Apparently mishandled Cossack said to personally control design.

The liner (paper in the cassette box to record the names of songs) in imported magazines was from a nice glossy paper. As it is very convenient to write with a pencil, and, if necessary, easy to wash rubber. The Soviet liner tape was from a rough cardboard and newsprint paper. Once write on it was still possible, but when you try to erase the inscription rubber, paper turned into a muddy mess.

However, this situation was just a trifle. This might need to erase the names of songs and write new ones if the film itself, in principle, has been poorly adapted to overwrite? For film cassettes was a match for the rest. She could only provide a very modest quality of the recording, but when you try to overwrite often - quickly fail.



But this film recorders liked! It is with great pleasure zazhevyvali it at every opportunity. This case was presciently provided by manufacturers of cassettes and because the housing is often missing screws. All tapes were imported disassembled, ie, subject to minor repairs - for example, to spread the film. Many of the same Soviet tapes were glued, they honestly tried to escort play scratch and whistling, but, alas, did not respond to repair. If restive film cassette, the cassette can be disposed of immediately. And even better - do not buy.

But someone has to buy them? Buy. Either completely unpretentious consumers or absolutely miser. In any case, the school magazine sverkanut MK meant to doom oneself to ridicule right. However, given that now you can find memories of the Soviet era, sustained in the most rosy, I would not be surprised if someone would write that the Soviet cassette significantly superior to foreign analogues, worked perfectly and all still someone properly serve . Not at all surprised.

Source: sovkladovka.net