*A Couple of updates* (If a comment about auto-reverse has gone unanswered - it's probably already covered off here) If you want to see one of the Philips plastic chute machines in action, here it is ruclips.net/video/rjXEiY8677w/видео.htmlm53s and it's not half as exciting to watch as you may have imagined. Here's the Nakamichi mechanism in action. ruclips.net/video/5mEQGmyDhiY/видео.htmlm43s Also a dozen or so people have asked me to mention that amongst the other auto-reverse mechanisms not shown in the video, you can use four track heads so the tape can be played in either direction, this is commonly seen in small *players* like Walkman (Walkmen?) and car stereos. It is rarely seen in *recorders*. The machine featured in this video is a *recorder*.
Many MANY years ago when I was taking electronics in high school the instructor showed us a "StereoMatic" FM radio. It wasn't actually stereo, it just had two speakers!
OR followed by an awesome-sounding future-year number like -2000, -3000 or an X. I'm still waiting for some smart-assed company to mock that ridiculous naming convention by calling their product the [INSERT PRODUCT NAME HERE] 'LMNOP 10000'
Here in Norway it is common knowledge that selling your gunz on the black market will almost certainly be more profitable than using the Nutz4Gunz-O-Matic vending machines.
I've admired this channel and the production values for quite a while. I'm still discovering videos that were posted years ago. This one is just terrific. It started out as a normal 'Techmoan' quality, which is very high. Then it ran into a montage of close up macro shots showing toothed tracks and gear wheels, belts, servos, actuators, lifting fingers, micro motors. Just wonderful. The smooth shadow and glare free lighting on these shots is astounding. Very difficult to get the tight camera focus and flat, perfectly white balanced soft lighting. Excellent work. Thanks for posting. I hope your skill set makes you a good living and you have little to worry about. Wish you well.
Watching it work in slow-motion makes me think about all the things that can go wrong (but fortunately don't). It's remarkable how well preserved this deck is.
Thank soooo very much for this Video. My dad and I used to sell second hand home audio back in 80's and 90's and we used to service and fix Tape decks, amps, turn tables and all but, my Father was an EXCELLENT mechanical engineer when it came to re-synchronizing these types of Mechs, something only a watch maker could understand nowadays but, those days have passed and, so has my Father. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for ALL the videos you upload, they bring back fond memories of my Father.
+Leonardo Mendoza sorry to hear about your father. If he was capable of fixing something like this he must have been a master of mechanics (with a lot of patience). I'm sure you still use the skills you picked up from him.
Thank you very much for giving such a great detailed insight into these very old but incredibly engineered machines. I was just simply not aware of this kind of autoreverse at all. It's very impressive.
The more I look at this, the more amazed I am at how this entire machine runs without any computer assistance. You can tell there was a ridiculous amount of thought put into this.
The engineer's brain was the computer. It's task: How to semi-automate (or fully-automate) a process using only electro-mechanical processes (because that's all there was at the time unless you wanted to make the thing 100X bigger by building a 'computer' into it, probably consisting of vacuum tubes or the earliest hand-wired through-hole electronic components).
How I miss mechanics in home audio/video these days. It always fascinated how VCR's, Turntables, Tape Decks and CD Players etc worked so I was always taking the covers off of my parents equipment, which, of course, made them very mad. ;-) But this is something different. Glad I'm not the only one that gets excited watching mechanics like this. Thanks again for making a great video.
My favourite is still the Nakamichi, mostly due to how much it puts the mechanism on display without turning it into a gimmick. With the Akai it's just hidden away inside the cabinet, and with the Philips it seems more like a carnival trick, but with the Nakamichi it's pretty clear that they're putting some respect into displaying their work without compromising the aesthetic design.
It's called "UDAR", and is basically a carousel that spins the tape so the same head reads it the same direction, reversing the whole casette instead of changing tape play direction or using a second head.@@ariekazep7489
I still have the Akai CS-50 that my father bought in 1973. It works very well and is a Japanese electromechanical marvel, even today it surprises with its complex auto-reverse system and its high audio quality.
In the early 70s, I worked as a technician for an audio service shop. We were an Akai aurhorized service center, so we often got those in for repair. We nicknamed them "toasters."
Thanks for posting the video- especially the slow motion of the auto reverse mechanism in use. I never saw the Akai in US stores but the influence on the cassette holder in the Nakamichi RX model rack mounting adaptation is evident. The Philips chute design reminds me of factory production line mechanisms. I especially enjoyed the music used for the cassette rotation sequence as 2001 is one of my favorite movies.
I remember them well! In the early 70s, I was a service tech for an audio repair shop. We were an authorized Akai service center, and got quite a few of those in, for repair. Their problems were always mechanical, not electronic. And we DID refer to them as "toasters"!
Ah Nakamichi now there’s a name I’d forgotten about. I got quite excited about owning one as they were considered the gold standard of tape players. It didn’t auto- reverse but had chrome and metal settings. A quality cassette player. Thanks for the video, champion.🇦🇺
Dear Techmoan! Thank you for that, not seen it before, but what a joy!! I built my business (now over 40 years...) on electro-mechanical design & fabrication, I am still immersed in it now. Though modern electronics, etc. clearly have their place now, I get so incredibly bored stiff at, in particular, everything having to be controlled from a general purpose (mind-numbingly boring and quick to crash) Tablet, or whatever... Give me proper switches, knobs and dials ANY DAY! I have collected all sorts of stuff over the years, much like yourself, including the first (Philips) portable Cassette Player, which my dad bought me for Chrismas when I was about 9. I stripped it down within 24hrs of getting it and still like taking all the old stuff apart again, even now! And what about that SMELL!! - Transistors, Capacitors, Motors, Blah, blah. Thank you again, Mike Hughes, MKH Engineering.
The 2001 music during the slow motion bit was perfect! I was half expecting to hear HAL tell us that the bay door was locked and unable to auto reverse, lol. Techmoan videos are close to UD's videos on tube amps only for Hi Fi, I can't help but love all of these old tech demo videos.
as a fellow engineer, and as one who was born in 1973 i completely agree. so... you were also trying to figure it out.. right LOL i remember playing with this sort of stuff when i was around 10 never really it understood the electronics at the time, but i did figure most of the mechanics. in truth, the method by which it's flipping the tape is actually pretty smart, this is what we used to do with our fingers normally, at the end of side A, you get your tape with your second and middle finger and just twist your fingers and the tape would flip between your fingers and you'd let it fall back into the deck this is essentially mimicking that movement but the engineering behind this is both simple and cool and i can see the resemblence between thsi and how the Old BETA Max used to load Tapes as well as VHS Players
The engineering this is cool but NOT SIMPLE. This is a perfect example of over complicating things. Not sure why they did that but it sure does look cool.
The modern version of this mechanism is to be had in the NAKAMICHI RX 202 and RX505 cassette decks from the 1980's. All visible and beautiful to watch. Had a pair of 505's myself.
*Multiple Head Auto-Reverse* & *Worm Gear* To save scrolling through the previous comments - here are all the comments (so far) about the multiple-head auto-reverse mechanisms not shown or mentioned in the video....and the correct name for the Spiral Gear. *COMMENTS ABOUT FOUR HEAD AUTO--REVERSE* Phill R great video as always! but there was another type of auto reverse where there are tape heads that have 4 "pick ups" and would just reverse the tape direction and have a capstan/pinch roller either end, kinda like a mirror image transport mechanism Vax Buster Much better to use a double stacked head and reverse the motor direction, as Walkmans used to do Remco Meeder the cheapest solutions didn't even turn the heads but used double heads like the ones used in auto reverse walkmans :) pcuser80 For players there is a much simpler solution. In my old sony/aiwa player they used a 4track head. i am sure that some decks also used a 4 track head, the head turnaround comes later. john shead there are machines that have a head like a 4 track machine. they just use the play record head in the correct direction and an erase head on the correct side of the record head. Erik Bruijn didn't later cassette players use quad channel heads, 2 for each side, instead of rotating heads? Sparky Projects Didn't most auto reverse use a 4 track head, and simply reverse the direction of tape travel, and swap tracks electrically ? players didn't have the erase head to worry about, recorders had 2 erase heads iirc ncdv47 I'm pretty sure that's the way it worked too, at least on the players I had. There were no parts that flipped or rotated. william fleete Car stereos used a single playback head but had 2 stereo head areas on each side and the stereo switched which half of the head it was reading off as well as the direction of the mechanism instead of changing the rotation of the head or flipping the tape jormot I think you didn't mention the 4-track head system. I don't know if that system was used in recording machines, but it was used in auto reverse car tape players. Mike James Car cassette auto reverse is done with a 4 track fixed head. R-man R-man I have a cheap ghetto blaster by Hitachi from about 1987, which has a luxury of 4 channel head, so it reverses playback without flipping anything. Shamefully, it's my only tape deck now. DrSid42 I had a autoreverse walkman from Sony IIRC which just had double head and double roller. terastarship2 there are 2 types of auto reverse, your is the first earlier by using mechanically. later type using the 2 or 3 heads by revering the roller that wheels the tape. FeCr3 There are some vintage auto reverse cassette deck's they have a fixed autoreverse head onboard like auto reverse car stereo's too... Like my DUAL C828 from 1981: ruclips.net/video/VTEU-jX-Ikk/видео.html Philip vB Only thing I would have added are the autoreverse Walkmen that had a 4-track head that did not turn and only switches channels, these are even perfectly azimuth-adjustable and totally reliable. (Example: Aiwa HS-PC202MII) MrFixer1967 Now they do not flip the head or the tape. There are two pick up coils the the head. One for each direction. Martin King More modern machines simply had a head that could read both sides of the tape without needing to be rotated. mikeselectricstuff I never understood why they went to all the hassle of flipping heads etc. instead of doing what they did in car cassette players and simply used a 4-track head MRooodddvvv not only car players. i remember having portable cassette player with 4 track head as well. Allan Bak I'm missing one with auto reserve, pioneer ct-F750, with 4 track head that does not turn the cassetten or head, but just drive the other way when there are no more tape or can drive one way no problem with the head eventually comes out of the right angle Salvatore Shiggerino What the problem with simply stacking four heads and just reversing tape direction? Seems like it would be both cheaper and more reliable. mikeselectricstuff I think it was because most car cassette players didn't have record capabilities so no erase head to worry about being before the playback head in record mode. ForestCat The 4 track heads can only do playback. Due to crosstalk - the record current on 2 heads on one side would be picked up and transfer to the other 2 heads. Also, never satisfactory unless the mechanism was absolutely perfect in manufacturing tolerance... in every auto reverse machine I tried to align if you got it perfect on one side, it would be slightly out on the other... hi-fi nuts didn't like them for that reason :) *COMMENTS ABOUT THE WORM GEAR* Benjamin Harvey The spinning spiral driving the tape counter is called a worm gear in case you are interested. Chad Barrett It is called a worm gear. Not picking on you or anything. I just thought you would like to know what it is called. Helium Road I'm amazed the belts haven't brittled and the grease hasn't hardened after sitting in a box for 4 decades. And BTW, the "spiral thing" is called a worm gear. Sod Alfredsod The "spiral" wheel is called a worm gear. worm gears have the quite intresting abiltiy to turn around a gear that it touches, but not the oposite. This, combined with their high gear ratio makes the ideal for heavy-duty applications. wait, why did i waste time on this? ah, I will post it anyway. herrkelc 6:31 usually called worm wheel
+Techmoan Just to be ridiculously pedantic about the worm/"spiral" gear, you _all_ seem to have missed the fact that it's not _spiral_ at all. It's _helical_. In fairness, common use (and some dictionary definitions!) often ignore this extremely technically nit-picking distinction between the two terms "spiral" and "helix".
+Techmoan Hey Techmoan, I've spent days with a team of video forensic experts going through your demonstration of the Akai CS-55D and we've found the following evidence of your total ineffectiveness. Incidentally - we are *definitely* the first people to point either of these things out: 1) You made no mention of a 4 head auto-reverse system which does not involve flipping the tape head. 2) You called a worm gear a spiral....lol noob.
I love ingenious engineering. that kind of thing always fascinates me. Knowing that a brilliant mind came up with something that no one else had, to do something so insignificant, it's oddly pacifying.
I completely disagree. This mechanism is simple and straight-forward, logical. How is this supposed to be more overengineered than the Philips chute?!?
absolutely brilliant angles showing off the mechanisms, switches and the like. A+ editing. If you don't have a career in videography, I think you missed your calling.
I had the model GXC-65D that he mentioned briefly. I bought it used, and used it for several years. It was a good, reliable machine. The only work I ever had to do on it besides routine cleaning and demagnetizing was replacing the belt on the counter. I was always impressed by the reversing mechanism. The plastic cover over the mechanism was removable on the 65D, so it was easy to watch it do its thing.
+DarrenC1888 thanks, I've been putting a lot more time into them. This one took three days to shoot, edit and voiceover. That's quite a bit quicker than the action camera reviews.
Techmoan You can really tell that you've put a lot more work into the videos. In fact the recent hi fi stuff has even inspired me to think about expanding my hi fi set up!
All those gears , belts pulleys & moving parts & its still working after 40 years !! , that would never be the case these days , might get 5 years if your lucky !! , love this channel , love seeing all the things i owned & all the things i wanted to when i was younger , things were built so much better then
You don't even need to do that - just have a reverse mechanism when the tape gets to the end and a double tape head which begins reading the lower part of the tape (ie side 2) as the taoe goes in reverse. That would do the same thing without any special mechanics except an end-of-tape sensor and a motor with reversable polarity. Easy! But boring.
8:35 Oh, yes. Misaligned heads were SO common. I always thought the b-side had a worse sound than the a-side and the alignement was an issue on portable players. I once had a walkman that would get misaligned on the second side all the time. I usually used auto-reverse players...without using the auto-reverse function.
That is one of the reasons (concerns about head alignment) I avoided auto reverse. Another reason was that it made the deck much more complicated to use.
It's hilarious they designed this whole thing. Amazing how the solution is right under your nose and you go completely around it just because that's the first path you thought of.
Hi Techmoan, hope you see my message and my suggestion, there was few types of hifi in soviet union times, I bet people would love to see those old devices, good look finding one!🙋♂️
My friend missing one point when mentioning swapping the heard around for auto reverse is that it is not only turn the head it also make the cassette wheels turning the opposite direction in order to play the other side. In any case I still found those mechanisms truly amazing, especially VHS that rule the world for a long time before taking over by digital media.
It's so amazing that the rubber belts still works perfectly after all those years! I was also *seriously impressed* when the video showed *two redundant belts* for one mechanism! (5:16, lower right corner)
I was in the home stereo business in 1972. I was just akid (20) but remember being totally in awe of this machine. It was very expensive for the times. I wish I had one today.
The whole time I was watching this, I was thinking about one I saw many moons ago that was almost as complicated. And then ... there it is at the end. Nice.
Very very smart. I grew up in the 80's and for some people who said...why don't just reverse the rotate direction with double line head I have to say this. All the decks with the simple rotate reverse direction has the same problem. Everytime, one side of the double head has better sound!!!!! More treble sound. With akai reverse system, both sides have the same sound quality!
My dad bought the Philips cassette machine with the plastic chute back in the 70s when it was just released. I was still using it in the 90s. It worked flawlessly for 20+ yrs and was still working and sounding great when I finally bought a new sound system and retired it to the attic. It was a great piece of early 70s technology. You just loaded it up with all your fav tapes and it would play all day without just playing the same one album again and again. Of course you had to get up and eject through the other tapes if you wanted to hear the other side of a tape right away, but back then when it was new, it was a minor hassle for something that was so cool at the time.
I never understood why they went to all the hassle of flipping heads etc. instead of doing what they did in car cassette players and simply used a 4-track head
+mikeselectricstuff I think it was because most car cassette players didn't have record capabilities so no erase head to worry about being before the playback head in record mode.
What if your short those 2 inactive tracks? Anyway you would need second capstan, pinch roller, and erase head on other side and have it matching speed perfectly to the first one. One side would end up wearing more than the other so it would go out of alignment. So I guess in the end it's simple to somehow rotate the cassette :)
I wonder if it would be possible to use two separate two-track heads, one for each side. It should be possible for a playback only machine, but it might not with a playback and recording machine (due to lack of space for what would be five heads [erase, two for recording and two for playback]). These complications are why I specifically sought out a single-direction cassette deck since I never trusted auto reverse due to issues with head alignment and the relative complexity of the deck.
I can't believe they didn't make the flip cover transparent or at least translucent to show off the trick! And I was wondering if he'd mention the one from the 80s. It was shown at the beginning of a famous Paula Abdul music video of the time...
On the one hand, It's an amazing piece of engineering. On the other, I'd hate to be the guy (or guys more likely) who probably spent at-least a few months or longer trying to devise this contraption, only to see the reversing read head a few years later.
Magnificent contraption. To think that folk art the time thought the Japanese engineers didn't innovate... I doubt the British electronics companies of the time would have been able to get anywhere near that level of ingenuity!
Great video - I sold these machines way back - having another look at this early tech fascinates me. Will definitely have a look at your other vids. Keep up the good work!
What a fascinating machine and hats off to the filming and commenting! Thanks for sharing and going through all the effort in making these videos. On your comment on autoreverse cassette recorders requiring to flip the heads for 180 degrees, you might want to have a closer look at the UHER CR 1600, which has a 4 track head and two erase heads arranged in forward and backward to it. Definitely one of my favourites. The mechanism is based on UHER‘s 1972 CR 124 which was autoreverse but not when recording. Anyways I share your fascination with vintage HiFi equipment and have great joy in watching your videos - thanks!
A beautiful video of over-engineered joy. I especially enjoyed the sync of your music with the slow-mo. Lovely content mate, and thanks for sharing it.
I love your videos so much. You are basically the coolest guy in history. You make every day I have so much better. Please keep doing what you're doing.
My brother dragged one of those things home back in the 1980's. I was fascinated by it. Enjoyed listening to this edition on my Akai AA-910 that I bought second hand about 40 years ago.
+Adrienne Shepard Back in the "old days", people thought electronics were "ugly" and had to be masked with wood to make it look like furniture. So, console TV's and stereos ruled the day. Any other electronic device that might sit in the living room (like an Atari or Pong console) were similarly masked, if only to match the actual TV's they were connected to. By the 80's, people figured out that electronics were not "dirty laundry" which had to be hidden. I sold TV's for awhile in the early 90's, and every so often an older couple would come in insisting on a console TV set for that very reason. By then, here were very few console sets to be had.
@@lordmikethegreat : True...but by those 80's and 90's, most of the 'wood' finish was a plastic wood patterned wrap over either more plastic, or cheap plywood! Some companies even used a wood patterned foil type wrap over a bare sheet metal case! Little did they know back when when real wood was regularly used, that it was far better ecologically (if it came from sustainable forrests, of course) than the subsequent, and cheaper plastic wood finish that at least on most Hi-Fi units had died out by the early 80's...!
Round of applause to that machine for still working so well after all this time - looked almost mint inside - I think he said it was new, but you would have expected some crap to gather by now.
I have this type in 1973 and still used upto 1980's and had also try to repair this reverse mechanism when got trouble, such an amazing technology at that time,still remembered AKAI until now because this cassete reverse mechanism.
this is just pure hardcore mechanical porn at its finest watched it 2x and i love how simple it is yet so much is going on and no computer chips no processors just pure reliable goodness
+yellowbusguy That's why I got a portable PMD 430. It makes me feel like I'm living in some steampunk parallel universe. Plus, the damn thing is just about CD quality.
*A Couple of updates* (If a comment about auto-reverse has gone unanswered - it's probably already covered off here)
If you want to see one of the Philips plastic chute machines in action, here it is ruclips.net/video/rjXEiY8677w/видео.htmlm53s and it's not half as exciting to watch as you may have imagined.
Here's the Nakamichi mechanism in action. ruclips.net/video/5mEQGmyDhiY/видео.htmlm43s
Also a dozen or so people have asked me to mention that amongst the other auto-reverse mechanisms not shown in the video, you can use four track heads so the tape can be played in either direction, this is commonly seen in small *players* like Walkman (Walkmen?) and car stereos. It is rarely seen in *recorders*. The machine featured in this video is a *recorder*.
+Techmoan That chute machine would certainly keep my cat occupied for a while...
+Vagner Alexandre Abreu it was a little 'joke' about the word for the plural of Walkman...is it Walkmen or Walkmans.
+Techmoan if you like mechanical engineering, you may take a look a EEVblog's B52 Bomber astro compass video. It's pure vintage engineering porn!
+Techmoan How is the carousel triggered? Is there an electromechanical switch?
+Techmoan That Nakamichi is refreshingly simple. The tape flipping just looks like a breeze for it.
If it has O-Matic in the name you know it's going to be awesome.
+Nutz4Gunz45 Or "Dyna-" or even "strato-"...
+Jeff Sumner Don't forget 'Relia-'
Many MANY years ago when I was taking electronics in high school the instructor showed us a "StereoMatic" FM radio. It wasn't actually stereo, it just had two speakers!
OR followed by an awesome-sounding future-year number like -2000, -3000 or an X. I'm still waiting for some smart-assed company to mock that ridiculous naming convention by calling their product the [INSERT PRODUCT NAME HERE] 'LMNOP 10000'
Here in Norway it is common knowledge that selling your gunz on the black market will almost certainly be more profitable than using the Nutz4Gunz-O-Matic vending machines.
I've admired this channel and the production values for quite a while. I'm still discovering videos that were posted years ago. This one is just terrific. It started out as a normal 'Techmoan' quality, which is very high. Then it ran into a montage of close up macro shots showing toothed tracks and gear wheels, belts, servos, actuators, lifting fingers, micro motors. Just wonderful. The smooth shadow and glare free lighting on these shots is astounding. Very difficult to get the tight camera focus and flat, perfectly white balanced soft lighting. Excellent work. Thanks for posting. I hope your skill set makes you a good living and you have little to worry about. Wish you well.
Oh wow! I thought that Phillips was convoluted, but this is spectacular! I could stare at the shot at 05:07 for hours.
+Lazy Game Reviews Why is it that i read that in your voice, soo soothing.
LGR good to see you here, LGR. Keep those retro nostalgia coming!
Watching it work in slow-motion makes me think about all the things that can go wrong (but fortunately don't). It's remarkable how well preserved this deck is.
The mechanical sound is even more impressive. Loved this.
Thank soooo very much for this Video. My dad and I used to sell second hand home audio back in 80's and 90's and we used to service and fix Tape decks, amps, turn tables and all but, my Father was an EXCELLENT mechanical engineer when it came to re-synchronizing these types of Mechs, something only a watch maker could understand nowadays but, those days have passed and, so has my Father.
I thank you from the bottom of my heart for ALL the videos you upload, they bring back fond memories of my Father.
+Leonardo Mendoza sorry to hear about your father. If he was capable of fixing something like this he must have been a master of mechanics (with a lot of patience). I'm sure you still use the skills you picked up from him.
Thank you for your touching comment. Time stings us all. Blessings to your father and your family.
Japan's product never make me disappointed.
That is some wallace and gromit tech right there.
Yah never thought about it like that... or even some rube goldberg imagination.
YES!
Not even Wensleydale?
Everyone knows the moons made of cheese!
That is an unforgettable classic you’ve got there
Thank you very much for giving such a great detailed insight into these very old but incredibly engineered machines.
I was just simply not aware of this kind of autoreverse at all. It's very impressive.
The more I look at this, the more amazed I am at how this entire machine runs without any computer assistance. You can tell there was a ridiculous amount of thought put into this.
Sunny M don't even mention the assembly process. It's a jewel.
The engineer's brain was the computer. It's task: How to semi-automate (or fully-automate) a process using only electro-mechanical processes (because that's all there was at the time unless you wanted to make the thing 100X bigger by building a 'computer' into it, probably consisting of vacuum tubes or the earliest hand-wired through-hole electronic components).
@@No-vm7go
Lol what? Integrated curcuits already existed in '73.
At that time any chip in importance was like now an entire computer
@@westelaudio943 Yes and I'm sure they must of been very expensive to big with!!
How I miss mechanics in home audio/video these days. It always fascinated how VCR's, Turntables, Tape Decks and CD Players etc worked so I was always taking the covers off of my parents equipment, which, of course, made them very mad. ;-)
But this is something different. Glad I'm not the only one that gets excited watching mechanics like this. Thanks again for making a great video.
Love the "2001 A Tape Oddity" section complete with Strauss.
My favourite is still the Nakamichi, mostly due to how much it puts the mechanism on display without turning it into a gimmick. With the Akai it's just hidden away inside the cabinet, and with the Philips it seems more like a carnival trick, but with the Nakamichi it's pretty clear that they're putting some respect into displaying their work without compromising the aesthetic design.
what type is Nakamichi?
It's called "UDAR", and is basically a carousel that spins the tape so the same head reads it the same direction, reversing the whole casette instead of changing tape play direction or using a second head.@@ariekazep7489
@@ariekazep7489Nakamichi RX-202, RX-303 and RX-505
I still have the Akai CS-50 that my father bought in 1973. It works very well and is a Japanese electromechanical marvel, even today it surprises with its complex auto-reverse system and its high audio quality.
In the early 70s, I worked as a technician for an audio service shop. We were an Akai aurhorized service center, so we often got those in for repair. We nicknamed them "toasters."
I'd like to see the hardware of a dead one repurposed as a toaster
It almost feels like I'm looking at an automaton machine from the 1800s with all those spinning cogs and levers.
Thanks for posting the video- especially the slow motion of the auto reverse mechanism in use. I never saw the Akai in US stores but the influence on the cassette holder in the Nakamichi RX model rack mounting adaptation is evident. The Philips chute design reminds me of factory production line mechanisms. I especially enjoyed the music used for the cassette rotation sequence as 2001 is one of my favorite movies.
I remember them well! In the early 70s, I was a service tech for an audio repair shop. We were an authorized Akai service center, and got quite a few of those in, for repair. Their problems were always mechanical, not electronic. And we DID refer to them as "toasters"!
I have the Akai GXC-65D , same as this but has Dolby , and I love it , its an amazing piece of kit .
5:29
Felt like I was watching 2001 again.
I like your style, Techmoan.
When I grow up, I wanna be just like you.
That's probably the most beautiful piece of engineering I've seen on this channel :O
Loved the videography, too!
That's it, I always find these videos so fascinating and I end up binge watching a lot from time to time - *I'm bloody subscribing!*
Ah Nakamichi now there’s a name I’d forgotten about. I got quite excited about owning one as they were considered the gold standard of tape players. It didn’t auto- reverse but had chrome and metal settings. A quality cassette player. Thanks for the video, champion.🇦🇺
Dear Techmoan! Thank you for that, not seen it before, but what a joy!! I built my business (now over 40 years...) on electro-mechanical design & fabrication, I am still immersed in it now. Though modern electronics, etc. clearly have their place now, I get so incredibly bored stiff at, in particular, everything having to be controlled from a general purpose (mind-numbingly boring and quick to crash) Tablet, or whatever... Give me proper switches, knobs and dials ANY DAY! I have collected all sorts of stuff over the years, much like yourself, including the first (Philips) portable Cassette Player, which my dad bought me for Chrismas when I was about 9. I stripped it down within 24hrs of getting it and still like taking all the old stuff apart again, even now! And what about that SMELL!! - Transistors, Capacitors, Motors, Blah, blah. Thank you again, Mike Hughes, MKH Engineering.
Excellent video.....clear narration and superb photography. Thanks for producing and posting it :)
Uncle Doug Techmoans videos are brilliant especially the puppets at the end of some of them.
I think this is a Techmoan classic. Utterly fascinating!
The 2001 music during the slow motion bit was perfect! I was half expecting to hear HAL tell us that the bay door was locked and unable to auto reverse, lol. Techmoan videos are close to UD's videos on tube amps only for Hi Fi, I can't help but love all of these old tech demo videos.
As an engineer, that is very satisfying.
as a fellow engineer, and as one who was born in 1973 i completely agree.
so... you were also trying to figure it out.. right LOL
i remember playing with this sort of stuff when i was around 10
never really it understood the electronics at the time, but i did figure most of the mechanics.
in truth, the method by which it's flipping the tape is actually pretty smart,
this is what we used to do with our fingers
normally, at the end of side A, you get your tape with your second and middle finger and just twist your fingers
and the tape would flip between your fingers and you'd let it fall back into the deck
this is essentially mimicking that movement
but the engineering behind this is both simple and cool
and i can see the resemblence between thsi and how the Old BETA Max used to load Tapes as well as VHS Players
The engineering this is cool but NOT SIMPLE. This is a perfect example of over complicating things. Not sure why they did that but it sure does look cool.
My favorite episode. A perfect example of mechanical engineering brought to its extreme.
I never get tired of watching this fantastic mechanism working! It's really ingenious and impressive! \o/
The modern version of this mechanism is to be had in the NAKAMICHI RX 202 and RX505 cassette decks from the 1980's. All visible and beautiful to watch. Had a pair of 505's myself.
*Multiple Head Auto-Reverse* & *Worm Gear*
To save scrolling through the previous comments - here are all the comments (so far) about the multiple-head auto-reverse mechanisms not shown or mentioned in the video....and the correct name for the Spiral Gear.
*COMMENTS ABOUT FOUR HEAD AUTO--REVERSE*
Phill R
great video as always! but there was another type of auto reverse where there are tape heads that have 4 "pick ups" and would just reverse the tape direction and have a capstan/pinch roller either end, kinda like a mirror image transport mechanism
Vax Buster
Much better to use a double stacked head and reverse the motor direction, as Walkmans used to do
Remco Meeder
the cheapest solutions didn't even turn the heads but used double heads like the ones used in auto reverse walkmans :)
pcuser80
For players there is a much simpler solution.
In my old sony/aiwa player they used a 4track head.
i am sure that some decks also used a 4 track head, the head turnaround comes later.
john shead
there are machines that have a head like a 4 track machine. they just use the play record head in the correct direction and an erase head on the correct side of the record head.
Erik Bruijn
didn't later cassette players use quad channel heads, 2 for each side, instead of rotating heads?
Sparky Projects
Didn't most auto reverse use a 4 track head, and simply reverse the direction of tape travel, and swap tracks electrically ?
players didn't have the erase head to worry about, recorders had 2 erase heads iirc
ncdv47
I'm pretty sure that's the way it worked too, at least on the players I had. There were no parts that flipped or rotated.
william fleete
Car stereos used a single playback head but had 2 stereo head areas on each side and the stereo switched which half of the head it was reading off as well as the direction of the mechanism instead of changing the rotation of the head or flipping the tape
jormot
I think you didn't mention the 4-track head system. I don't know if that system was used in recording machines, but it was used in auto reverse car tape players.
Mike James
Car cassette auto reverse is done with a 4 track fixed head.
R-man R-man
I have a cheap ghetto blaster by Hitachi from about 1987, which has a luxury of 4 channel head, so it reverses playback without flipping anything. Shamefully, it's my only tape deck
now.
DrSid42
I had a autoreverse walkman from Sony IIRC which just had double head and double roller.
terastarship2
there are 2 types of auto reverse, your is the first earlier by using mechanically. later type using the 2 or 3 heads by revering the roller that wheels the tape.
FeCr3
There are some vintage auto reverse cassette deck's they have a fixed autoreverse head onboard like auto reverse car stereo's too... Like my DUAL C828 from 1981: ruclips.net/video/VTEU-jX-Ikk/видео.html
Philip vB
Only thing I would have added are the autoreverse Walkmen that had a 4-track head that did not turn and only switches channels, these are even perfectly azimuth-adjustable and totally reliable. (Example: Aiwa HS-PC202MII)
MrFixer1967
Now they do not flip the head or the tape. There are two pick up coils the the head. One for each direction.
Martin King
More modern machines simply had a head that could read both sides of the tape without needing to be rotated.
mikeselectricstuff
I never understood why they went to all the hassle of flipping heads etc. instead of doing what they did in car cassette players and simply used a 4-track head
MRooodddvvv
not only car players.
i remember having portable cassette player with 4 track head as well.
Allan Bak
I'm missing one with auto reserve, pioneer ct-F750, with 4 track head that does not turn the cassetten or head, but just drive the other way when there are no more tape or can drive one way no problem with the head eventually comes out of the right angle
Salvatore Shiggerino
What the problem with simply stacking four heads and just reversing tape direction? Seems like it would be both cheaper and more reliable.
mikeselectricstuff
I think it was because most car cassette players didn't have record capabilities so no erase head to worry about being before the playback head in record mode.
ForestCat
The 4 track heads can only do playback. Due to crosstalk - the record current on 2 heads on one side would be picked up and transfer to the other 2 heads. Also, never satisfactory unless the mechanism was absolutely perfect in manufacturing tolerance... in every auto reverse machine I tried to align if you got it perfect on one side, it would be slightly out on the other... hi-fi nuts didn't like them for that reason :)
*COMMENTS ABOUT THE WORM GEAR*
Benjamin Harvey
The spinning spiral driving the tape counter is called a worm gear in case you are interested.
Chad Barrett
It is called a worm gear. Not picking on you or anything. I just thought you would like to know what it is called.
Helium Road
I'm amazed the belts haven't brittled and the grease hasn't hardened after sitting in a box for 4 decades. And BTW, the "spiral thing" is called a worm gear.
Sod Alfredsod
The "spiral" wheel is called a worm gear.
worm gears have the quite intresting abiltiy to turn around a gear that it touches, but not the oposite. This, combined with their high gear ratio makes the ideal for heavy-duty applications.
wait, why did i waste time on this?
ah, I will post it anyway.
herrkelc
6:31 usually called worm wheel
+Techmoan Just to be ridiculously pedantic about the worm/"spiral" gear, you _all_ seem to have missed the fact that it's not _spiral_ at all. It's _helical_. In fairness, common use (and some dictionary definitions!) often ignore this extremely technically nit-picking distinction between the two terms "spiral" and "helix".
+Techmoan Hey Techmoan, I've spent days with a team of video forensic experts going through your demonstration of the Akai CS-55D and we've found the following evidence of your total ineffectiveness.
Incidentally - we are *definitely* the first people to point either of these things out:
1) You made no mention of a 4 head auto-reverse system which does not involve flipping the tape head.
2) You called a worm gear a spiral....lol noob.
+Techmoan I love this channel even more after seeing your lowdown of the comments. FML i need to get our more.
You forgot to mention about those 4-track head used in portable and car player. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Its not helical gear its worm and pinion . As helical gear is basically spur gear with angled teeth and nothing like gear on video
pure art in motion
The slo-mo portion was amazing! An instant cult segment for sure...Thanks for the fantastic video...again.
I love ingenious engineering. that kind of thing always fascinates me. Knowing that a brilliant mind came up with something that no one else had, to do something so insignificant, it's oddly pacifying.
It's amazing how people could invent such a complex machine with just switches, motors, and capacitors.
That has got to be one of the best videos i have seen on youtube, Thank you
Brilliantly over-engineered.
I completely disagree. This mechanism is simple and straight-forward, logical. How is this supposed to be more overengineered than the Philips chute?!?
thx]
It wasn't really over-engineered, because they didn't have any other obvious way of doing it then.
Late to the party.. Why make it simple and effective when you can make it complex and wonderful!
I need a cassette deck, I wish I could find one of these, it's absolutely amazing.
Clean job dude! Akai created a superior engineering in those old times. A very beautiful casette deck. !!
I love elegant mechanical designs, when you can see that every part is crafted just right to do a job, and sometimes multiple actions.
Thanks!
absolutely brilliant angles showing off the mechanisms, switches and the like. A+ editing. If you don't have a career in videography, I think you missed your calling.
This is incredible and amazing. I love this. I could watch that thing all day. Thanks for this incredibly satisfying video.
This video was amazing but the slow me was absolutely EPIC! Thanks Techmoan!
I had the model GXC-65D that he mentioned briefly. I bought it used, and used it for several years. It was a good, reliable machine. The only work I ever had to do on it besides routine cleaning and demagnetizing was replacing the belt on the counter. I was always impressed by the reversing mechanism. The plastic cover over the mechanism was removable on the 65D, so it was easy to watch it do its thing.
That is the absolute, most brilliant tape deck i have ever seen, Nothing less than Genius.
Slow motion, "Blue Danube" sequence was excellent!
Always enjoyed your videos but they've been extra good this year. Loving the cassette and hi-fi videos.
+DarrenC1888 thanks, I've been putting a lot more time into them. This one took three days to shoot, edit and voiceover. That's quite a bit quicker than the action camera reviews.
Techmoan You can really tell that you've put a lot more work into the videos. In fact the recent hi fi stuff has even inspired me to think about expanding my hi fi set up!
A shining example of what happens when *_only_* engineers are in the room.
All those gears , belts pulleys & moving parts & its still working after 40 years !! , that would never be the case these days , might get 5 years if your lucky !! , love this channel , love seeing all the things i owned & all the things i wanted to when i was younger , things were built so much better then
I'm impressed. Printers and scanners also do me wonders but this on is better.
Akai: Founded: 1929, Tokyo, Japan
Of course it's Japan. Who else would make robots in 1972?
Never saw swiss watches or german cuckoo clocks?
@@DavidWatts4 ruclips.net/video/jSQNEPbQOiI/видео.html
Im surprised its not german with the overengineering
Germany. Japan just copied from it. But, japan 🇯🇵 made it way better
imagine how smart was the man who designed it
Smarter than the one who designed the Philips version from the time! It looks like a scale prop from Cheggars Plays Pop!
Not one man, but many men. Different components designed by different people.
Without any computer program to help designing and simulate it. Freaking marvellous. Can't imagine how to start such a project anyway.
Not smart enough (or too smart) to see that you can just reverse the tape head without turning the cassette.
You don't even need to do that - just have a reverse mechanism when the tape gets to the end and a double tape head which begins reading the lower part of the tape (ie side 2) as the taoe goes in reverse. That would do the same thing without any special mechanics except an end-of-tape sensor and a motor with reversable polarity. Easy! But boring.
8:35 Oh, yes. Misaligned heads were SO common. I always thought the b-side had a worse sound than the a-side and the alignement was an issue on portable players. I once had a walkman that would get misaligned on the second side all the time. I usually used auto-reverse players...without using the auto-reverse function.
That is one of the reasons (concerns about head alignment) I avoided auto reverse. Another reason was that it made the deck much more complicated to use.
Stepping back for a moment from the awesomeness of that mechanism, I think some appreciation is also needed for how huge the whole machine is!
Fun to see the Nakamichi get mentioned. I had one a looong time ago. It went missing in a house move (lightfingered flatmates)
Thank you for sharing with us this amazing machine!
Amazing video, never imagined of such an innovative way to perform auto-reverse 👍
It's hilarious they designed this whole thing. Amazing how the solution is right under your nose and you go completely around it just because that's the first path you thought of.
and sometimes you just have the guy who accidentally did it on that factory floor because he was being sloppy that day.
I think the Akai is a lot more elegant than that Philips 'helter skelter' version from the era - that one made me laugh a lot of coffee into my nose!
Hi Techmoan, hope you see my message and my suggestion, there was few types of hifi in soviet union times, I bet people would love to see those old devices, good look finding one!🙋♂️
My friend missing one point when mentioning swapping the heard around for auto reverse is that it is not only turn the head it also make the cassette wheels turning the opposite direction in order to play the other side. In any case I still found those mechanisms truly amazing, especially VHS that rule the world for a long time before taking over by digital media.
a b He did not miss this point.
The quality of the old machines impresses. Everything is disposable today 😔
It's so amazing that the rubber belts still works perfectly after all those years! I was also *seriously impressed* when the video showed *two redundant belts* for one mechanism! (5:16, lower right corner)
That is actually quite brilliant
actually i dunno how i found this video , but this is just amazing , u got a new subscriber!!
+gaetano87ful thanks.
+discflickerDotcom good guess... ruclips.net/video/fhUfRIeRSZE/видео.html
I was in the home stereo business in 1972. I was just akid (20) but remember being totally in awe of this machine. It was very expensive for the times. I wish I had one today.
The whole time I was watching this, I was thinking about one I saw many moons ago that was almost as complicated. And then ... there it is at the end. Nice.
5:30 That nod to 2001 is a master stroke. Chapeau.
that mechanism is so satisfying..
So many simple componets working together to make a beautifully complex machine.
Very very smart. I grew up in the 80's and for some people who said...why don't just reverse the rotate direction with double line head I have to say this. All the decks with the simple rotate reverse direction has the same problem. Everytime, one side of the double head has better sound!!!!! More treble sound. With akai reverse system, both sides have the same sound quality!
My dad bought the Philips cassette machine with the plastic chute back in the 70s when it was just released. I was still using it in the 90s. It worked flawlessly for 20+ yrs and was still working and sounding great when I finally bought a new sound system and retired it to the attic. It was a great piece of early 70s technology. You just loaded it up with all your fav tapes and it would play all day without just playing the same one album again and again. Of course you had to get up and eject through the other tapes if you wanted to hear the other side of a tape right away, but back then when it was new, it was a minor hassle for something that was so cool at the time.
And most of all, most parts weren't made of plastic, so more durable than in the plastic age we are living now.
I never understood why they went to all the hassle of flipping heads etc. instead of doing what they did in car cassette players and simply used a 4-track head
+mikeselectricstuff
not only car players.
i remember having portable cassette player with 4 track head as well.
+mikeselectricstuff
I think it was because most car cassette players didn't have record capabilities so no erase head to worry about being before the playback head in record mode.
What if your short those 2 inactive tracks? Anyway you would need second capstan, pinch roller, and erase head on other side and have it matching speed perfectly to the first one. One side would end up wearing more than the other so it would go out of alignment. So I guess in the end it's simple to somehow rotate the cassette :)
I wonder if it would be possible to use two separate two-track heads, one for each side. It should be possible for a playback only machine, but it might not with a playback and recording machine (due to lack of space for what would be five heads [erase, two for recording and two for playback]).
These complications are why I specifically sought out a single-direction cassette deck since I never trusted auto reverse due to issues with head alignment and the relative complexity of the deck.
Wasnt it because if they used 4-track the audio resolution would have been poorer?
I can't believe they didn't make the flip cover transparent or at least translucent to show off the trick! And I was wondering if he'd mention the one from the 80s. It was shown at the beginning of a famous Paula Abdul music video of the time...
Feeling of joy. That noice of lever and gear is awesome.
One of the most beautifully shot technical "teardowns" on the Toobs - awesome :)
!!
"Invert-O-Matic" I really miss the days when names like that were actually cool =)
+CradyLab just add o matic to everything
+DUKE NUKEM I know, right?
+CradyLab i think they still are....
On the one hand, It's an amazing piece of engineering. On the other, I'd hate to be the guy (or guys more likely) who probably spent at-least a few months or longer trying to devise this contraption, only to see the reversing read head a few years later.
Nah, this system was better. The rotating head system lead to head mis-alignment issues.
Magnificent contraption. To think that folk art the time thought the Japanese engineers didn't innovate... I doubt the British electronics companies of the time would have been able to get anywhere near that level of ingenuity!
+Jason james .............I am sure they could..... just ask Sir Alan Sugar.
+Edd Boucher I'm not sure clagging a cassette deck on the end of a 128k Spectrum qualifies as ingenious if I'm honest ;-)
Absolutely brilliant. The Brian’s and timings behind that, is amazing.
Graham Franklin Yep, Brian’s behind a lot of things.
Great video - I sold these machines way back - having another look at this early tech fascinates me. Will definitely have a look at your other vids. Keep up the good work!
My father had 2 of these when I was a kid. Actually he still has them. Not sure he's used them in 20+ years, but they are in his living room.
Preserve them! preserve them for future generations of engineers.
this is really amazing. it makes me laugh out of admiration, it's a strange feeling.
5:28 This Stanley Kubrick moment.... I love your fine sense of humour.
Yes that was beautiful slow serenade to the Blue Danube
What a fascinating machine and hats off to the filming and commenting! Thanks for sharing and going through all the effort in making these videos.
On your comment on autoreverse cassette recorders requiring to flip the heads for 180 degrees, you might want to have a closer look at the UHER CR 1600, which has a 4 track head and two erase heads arranged in forward and backward to it. Definitely one of my favourites. The mechanism is based on UHER‘s 1972 CR 124 which was autoreverse but not when recording.
Anyways I share your fascination with vintage HiFi equipment and have great joy in watching your videos - thanks!
A beautiful video of over-engineered joy. I especially enjoyed the sync of your music with the slow-mo. Lovely content mate, and thanks for sharing it.
Holly shit that’s amazing. Why, just why didn’t they make a translucent version?
"Where does he get such wonderful toys?"
Ebay
that's very elegant and probably worked well until the inevitable breakdown. I would love to see the Phillips throw and hope changer.
+brian whittle so would I.
+brian whittle ...and here it is (and it's not that exciting to watch) ruclips.net/video/rjXEiY8677w/видео.html
I love your videos so much. You are basically the coolest guy in history. You make every day I have so much better. Please keep doing what you're doing.
My brother dragged one of those things home back in the 1980's. I was fascinated by it. Enjoyed listening to this edition on my Akai AA-910 that I bought second hand about 40 years ago.
This is what I tought every auto-reverse mechanism worked when I was a small kid...
Same.
It looks like something Doc Brown would use.
That wood strip reminds me of an Atari 2600. The 1970s must have been the Wood Age or something. There was wood veneer on everything.
+Adrienne Shepard Back in the "old days", people thought electronics were "ugly" and had to be masked with wood to make it look like furniture. So, console TV's and stereos ruled the day. Any other electronic device that might sit in the living room (like an Atari or Pong console) were similarly masked, if only to match the actual TV's they were connected to. By the 80's, people figured out that electronics were not "dirty laundry" which had to be hidden. I sold TV's for awhile in the early 90's, and every so often an older couple would come in insisting on a console TV set for that very reason. By then, here were very few console sets to be had.
@@lordmikethegreat very interesting
@@lordmikethegreat : True...but by those 80's and 90's, most of the 'wood' finish was a plastic wood patterned wrap over either more plastic, or cheap plywood! Some companies even used a wood patterned foil type wrap over a bare sheet metal case!
Little did they know back when when real wood was regularly used, that it was far better ecologically (if it came from sustainable forrests, of course) than the subsequent, and cheaper plastic wood finish that at least on most Hi-Fi units had died out by the early 80's...!
Round of applause to that machine for still working so well after all this time - looked almost mint inside - I think he said it was new, but you would have expected some crap to gather by now.
I have this type in 1973 and still used upto 1980's and had also try to repair this reverse mechanism when got trouble, such an amazing technology at that time,still remembered AKAI until now because this cassete reverse mechanism.
I think I could watch this thing flip tapes for hours
this is just pure hardcore mechanical porn at its finest watched it 2x and i love how simple it is yet so much is going on and no computer chips no processors just pure reliable goodness
If you're sexually aroused by this, you may want to seek psychological assistance.
Could you imagine where we would be now with the electro mechanical stuff if the tech had continued on? There is a kind of steampunk vibe going on.
+yellowbusguy That's why I got a portable PMD 430. It makes me feel like I'm living in some steampunk parallel universe. Plus, the damn thing is just about CD quality.
Genius. Absolute genius. What a lovely video. Thank you, Techmoan.