Panasonic and Technics' entry-level cassette decks from the late 1970s and early 1980s are brimming with vintage hi-fi audio component charm, but have a very non-service-friendly chassis design.
Reminds me of taking apart Volkswagens. A lot of "what the **** were they thinking when they built this thing!?" and a cheery service manual that simply says "installation is the reverse of disassembly".
To be fair, a lot of more modern cars renders you scratching your head.. Try changing the spark plugs on any newer Subaru, for example. The lateral crash beams go right past the cylinder heads, so the whole engine needs to come up about 10 cm to get to them. And FIATs! Jesus! It took me two full days of work to replace the start battery on our RV, where the cab is a stock FIAT Ducato -99. Not that new, but still.. FIATs!
@@Tjita1 i mean, its really understandable for subaru because of the flat four design, but some car with inline-4 that make changing spark plug is a pain, they deserve to go to hell
Yep, like the alternator having to be removed to get to the thermostat on my Passat! Thank goodness they are generally reliable because when they do break down you regret owning one.
Your style is perfect and I just wanted to say I hope you continue doing everything you do on this channel. Seeing a new upload from you is a special thing to people like me.
Reminds me a lot of the decks you used to get with entry-level stack systems. A matching tuner, amplifier, turntable, speakers..and a lovely little (simulated!) wood-grain cabinet with (obligatory) glass door and castors! Happy days :')
I have seen several of those stack systems where they appeared to consist of separate units, but were in reality just one unit with the front panel(s) simulating separate units; Amstrad in the UK made quite a few of those, both under their own name, and under the name Schneider for the German market. Speaking of wood grain, that is right up LGR's alley ;)
BertyFromDK those were just awful. Another bad design that was common back then was separate components with proprietary ribbon connectors that all shared one power supply; usually in the receiver. If one piece got orphaned, it was rendered useless, and there was no way to really change or upgrade anything.
@@danieldaniels7571 You are absolutely right, it was a horrible idea; say, if the component with the power supply had to be serviced, then the rest of the system was completely useless for the duration.
The amazing thing is that you are able to keep all your vintage stuff in order and accessible. I had a ton of neat stuff but sometime it's not worth the effort trying to find to and get it out.
I was surprised to be scrolling through my RU-vid recommendations and see a video on the cassette deck I own. This was a great video, learned quite a few things. I got this not too long ago, in great working condition, and I am quite happy with it. Thanks for the video!
I used to have a seperates stereo system in the 80's. The tuner/amp was labled National-Panasonic, the tape deck was Technics-Panasonic, the CD was Technics and the turn-table was National. Hell of a mix-up, but sounded fantastic.
@@danieldaniels7571 It's not REALLY a mixup, but kinda IS too. National,Panasonic,and Technics ARE all Matsushita brands, But Chevrolet,Buick and Cadillac are likewise all General Motors brands. There HAVE been people who built Chevy El Caminos with Buick Regal front clips and power components, Here's just one: www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/news/a31413/buick-grand-national-el-camino/ If one did THAT and dropped a Cadillac engine in it, That would cover it! LOL.
I've came across several of these at my workplace. Recently, in a bid to compete against most thrift stores, we started making anything in the DIY section $5, no matter what it is.
When I fitted out my 28 ft sloop sailboat I bought a Panasonic cassette player and am/fm radio bought around 1976. It looked very much like this unit but of course no gauges, no mic jacks but a radio frequency display and the dial to adjust. I had two Polk speakers to have great tunes. It was powered with a 12 volt dc tp 110 volt inverter. I gave it to a girlfriend in Key West when I removed it for more storage.
I used to live in Bethlehem and remember that station. Never could find that top loader Realistic cassette deck. I'll have to scan through the catalog a few more times.
Also the case being made from plastic (injection moulding) would have made the manufacturing process much cheaper. This would have been a way to make a higher end product (i.e. quality internal parts) at a budget price.
I've seen a lot of plastic-chassis devices that were a lot more serviceable than this. Typically, the cover and back come off as one piece and everything else slide into slots in the molded plastic chassis-front-panel (eg. 1980s GE/RCA CTC-136 based TVs). I don't see what Matsushita saved by making such a mess of this, especially if any had to be recalled or retrofitted before being shipped.
It's an exact replica of a RISING Japanese Stereo I used to have in Baghdad, back in the 1970's - Same power buttons, piano keys and selector switches & VU meters....
I saw the Technics version of this deck just the other day at a thrift store. Very cool looking and I was tempted to buy it but I didn't. When I tried it, it played a bit slow and the take up reel was a bit sluggish. Also the VU meters didn't light up. Watching your video I'm glad I did not buy it 😅😅
Great upload Mr VWestlife - Classic deck. As an old user the missing element for me is always a backlight behind the tape cassette. When making a mix tape the anxiety was always 'how much tape on the reel' before it ends. Backlight arrangement always helped with this. Love the piano key operation on this one. A thing of great beauty - Well done Mr VWestlife
Yes... the days when a cassette deck had an actual light behind the tape are sadly missed! I know some manufacturers used a luminous orange sticker, or a 'mirror finish' sticker, but it was never the same as a real light!
I found one of these in a Goodwill about 10 years ago. Awesome mixdown deck, and used to to transfer a lot of music back and forth from a computer, and as a mastering deck rom my Tascam 4 track. It worked until the day it didn't.
Great and informative video! Thanks, I would NOT want to try and replace belts in that machine! I had Hitachi's version of this style deck, (I think Radio Shack had a similar looking model too) and I enjoyed it very much. I completely agree with you about the tactile feel, appearance and ambiance of a piece of equipment! Some of the stuff that came out in the 1970's had great styling! I'm thinking the Pioneer 707 R2R or Akai GX77 R2R decks, for example. Great styling! Technics and Pioneer turntables, the new linear tracking machines, all showed style and a technological grace that was palpable. I believe that part of the pleasure of owning a stereo component system is seeing it -- and feeling a bit of a technological thrill when you do. The case , the lights, the tactile rotary or slider controls and switches, the satisfying "clunk" of a depressed and locked in position key or switch -- these all made for a unique and sensory pleasurable experience. I remember in the mid-70's there was a minimalist push to make components -- which cost more than even the high end Technics products -- look like plain matte black boxes. The claim was that all the money went for quality components and superior engineering and sound instead of "eye candy". I sampled some of these components, but did not find the claim to be accurate in the listening room at the stereo show/listening room (remember those?). The slight improvement in sound didn't make up for the total loss of any eye-candy. I.e. their radio tuner had no dial scale or station indicator. Instead the tuning knob and face place had a legend for the radio stations engraved upon it. ONE light showed if you found a stereo station. It was almost impossible to tune and -- with no eye candy, it was "blah". Didn't sound very good either! On the next shelf was an Onkyo receiver with so many lights and switches, it looked like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise! And it sounded BETTER (more punchy) than the minimalist component system that cost so much more. Guess which one I bought? One to beam up...
Panasonic may have made cheap stuff, but they never made junk. I've owned at least 100 different second hand components over the years, and the Panasonics always worked, no matter how cheap or nasty they were.
My dad got one on the late 70s and I've used it a lot. Never gave belt problems, but one day I had to open it to calibrate the playback speed and noticed that it was indeed, upside down. it is still here. Once had to change the head and that was it.
After getting into cassettes, I realize that ease of service is a far more wonderful thing than exterior polish or even technical specs. A Dolby S deck that cant be serviced is just a deck you are leasing from the landfill.
The tastefully chosen sans-serif font used on the front panel really adds to the appeal - manufacturers of today's inexpensive electronic products would do well to take note.
2:21 "it's the latest from Sixpence None the Richer.." ..which is a cover of The La's 'There She Goes' from the early 90s. I bet they thought it was an original song on that station..
VWestlife at the time the original came out I lived in Denver and listened to the alternative station KTCL frequently, and the they had it in heavy rotation for a while. Liked it so much I bought the full tape, and all of it is really good. Much better than the Sixpence cover.
The separate left and right record level is interesting. My similar Technics RS-M7 has a dual concentric knob. Fortunately the RS-M7 has screws on the top of the case, although I haven't been inside it to service it (yet). Nice video.
I had an older version of these that I found on the street and tore apart when I was a kid. The mechanism did have problems but I used the electronics as a mic amp. Did the job quite well.
In my experience gear from the National/Panasonic/National Panasonic/Technics stable in the 70s and 80s was reliable and built to last. I'm still using an amp and speakers from them from that era that I bought new. I suspect that the engineers didn't design with servicing in mind because it usually wasn't needed.
Rubber belts can break and do stretch. I think the poor serviceability was more due to meeting a specific price ooint while delivering a solid entry-level product. Which would also explain why they really packed everything into such a small chassis.
I really enjoy learning about cassette deck from those days getting out of cassettes years ago. I gave away allot of my childhood cassettes I gave away and went to vinyl. I got another small deck recently, mostly use it to find weird albums at thrift stores, to covert to MP3.
It was so good to see one of these. I have one of these stored in my basement somewhere. I love older tech audio equipment too. My collecting peaked when I started buying Realistic stereo equip.The STA-2300 receiver, 4 Mach ones, Lab 440 turntable and their SCT-32 metal tape deck. I used the Panasonic deck to play tapes and then make copies on the SCT-32. I never liked carrying original tapes in the car because of heat. The most amazing thing to me is in 1978 I bought four 120 minute Supertape cassettes. They strongly recommended to not use then in car decks because the tape was very thin. I went to my friends house and recorded those tapes full of albums on a Marantz deck. Carried them around in my car for years. To this very day they still play with only a slight degradation in sound quality. So many people made fun of Radio Shack stuff and cheap Panasonic stuff but I still have mine in working order to this day. That includes my Panasonic dynamite detonator 8 track player. Lol
This was probably sold as a stack. I remember the "Technics Supersystem" ads in the 1980s from local HiFi dealers. My first deck was the next gen version of this, the Technics dolby C / "microprocessor" control panel deck. Worked great for years.
Good to see your drive belts are still solid. Mine went to liquid and what a mess. I was able to get a repair kit on line and replacing them is a treat. Also, Mine had the feature where you could set it up for a timer. The controls could be set to record but the mechanism wouldn't close until the timer ( deck plugged into wall plug /light timer) came on and then the drive wheel would engage. That way you didn't get a flat spot on the drive wheel.
Great video! thank you for sharing it. I love the look of this vintage decks and the analog VU meters but was really scared of buying just a piece of junk unable to service it because I'm not a technician. So just bought a brand new Sony TC WE475 with servo controlled motors some years ago and feel very happy with it although still missing those huge VU meters.
We used to have the Technics version in black with gold accents. It looked very nice. We bought it with my dad as new with a Technics receiver and a turntable. I’m still using the turntable, I think my sister might have the deck and receiver. I recorded all my tapes with that deck when I was young... lots of memories.
“Genuine Walnut Woodgrain Vinyl Veneer”. I still remember puzzling over that little sticker on my Sound Design Quadraphonic 8-Track system around 1977. I worked all that summer to buy it. I found two quad 8-tracks that interested me, Pink Floyd- Dark Side of the Moon and the Yes album with Roundabout (I think it was titled Fragile). It sounded good through the speakers with lots of volume but the headphones that came with it were amazing. Just another example of a format that didn’t last, but it was cool for awhile.
I have a National Panasonic music centre from the 1970’s, and all of its electrics are only accessible from underneath. Must have been a Matsushita design style of the time.
I've an old small Panasonic music center, when playing a prerecorded tape, the sound on a channel is lower than the other, ( on radio or phono), the sound is well balanced. When i record a tape with that music center, on one channel, the sound is pratically missing when replaying the tape.
Only on budget gear like this, I had a Technics SU-8080 integrated amp from 1978 a few years ago, it was very well made and aged very well aesthetically too, it needed some work doing on it but it was very serviceable and I was able to restore it to like new condition... but sadly I had too much kit and it had to go. I bet it’s still working perfectly though somewhere.
Michael Burke no doubt it can be done, taking it to a professional service engineer would likely cost way more than the (monetary) value but if you have the skills to sort it yourself then I’d do it... and in any case, if it’s dead, the worst that can happen is that it’ll still be dead after a repair attempt. It’s likely that you’ll have to desolder a fair bit of wiring but to be fair, 70s high end pioneer kit was full of wire wraps that needed to be removed to get to the solder side of the PCBs, those were/are a pain in the arse, problem more so than this entry level Panasonic kit.
@@Si1983h Just for the hell of it I put together a 1979-vintage Technics system last year - SU-8044, ST-8011, RS-M17 and SB-F1 speakers. Looks fine, sounds fine, works fine: total cost, £120! (I cheated on the turntable, though - I wanted a linear tracker.) That stuff was built to last. :¬)
My favorite is the unique "Foot" mounted to the plastic access, where the other 3 are normal, reminds me of my 1st cassette deck 1981 JVC, which lasted about 3-4 years.
I have the Technics RS-M8 later version of this deck with the only differences being the analogue VU meters have been replaced with a vacuum display & no wood grain effect case - great work horse deck built like a tank!! When mine needed fixed a few years ago I tried to take it apart (with very little success) & had to send to a HiFi expert so I feel your pain!
I like that it isn't longer than it needs to be. Some of the newer devices intentionally make it bigger when they're just adding more air inside it. even going through the trouble of separating the power supply when they could've just put the brick inside and add a figure of 8 lead connector, hell some manufacturers grab an external brick and screw it in and that's fine imo
"It's the hardest thing I'll ever have to do... To turn around and walk away pretending I don't love you..." This unit is rather handsome in that it would easily fit in with most home-built stereo systems of the day that might have older pieces. It wouldn't look too far out of place sitting atop my Panasonic RS-803US 8-track player, and both units are similar in their truncated depth. I've taken apart many a cassette deck in my life. This deck is, by far, the most ridiculous I've ever seen, with my Sony CFD-470 running a close second (and that puppy ate belts like it was an All-You-Can-Eat Belt Buffet). To put things in perspective, I've also been deep within the bowels of car tape decks too, and they're not even that challenging in comparison. That Sony made me so mad that I insisted my next tape deck be direct drive (which ended up being a Sony TCF-WR635S that I bought brand new and still works flawlessly).
Once again, you have created a very good video of something of my interest! I find it to be very interesting as how its being built, not very service friendly but I guess it doesn't have to be very service friendly! I've got a NIKKO ND-390 II cassette deck from 1980, it has analog vu meters, dolby b, and manual mechanic controls like your deck! The belts in it are still fine, alltho they are starting to get loose, luckily replacing the belts on mine is easy to do. And despite the fact it's head is worn out, resulting in weirdness in the treble, I prefer to use it to play back tapes more then my much newer better decks, just because of the looks! My deck also shares some similarities to yours, for example a microphone input, permanently attached cables as well as to be one of the very first decks to support metal tapes! It does have some differences like separate record bias and equalization controls and support for ferro-chrome tapes!
I have never encountered a bad belt in any Panasonic device. The worst I've encountered was a cracking belt in a 1986 Panasonic-manufactured Sylvania VCR, but it still worked fine, just a little bit of audio wow and flutter that still didn't go away after replacing it. On the other hand, every belt in my 1979 Phillips 5171 cassette deck was bad with the lone exception of the flat main drive belt.
It's a nice looking deck, I like the analog VU meters in these older cassette decks. My guess is the design was optimized for easy assembly instead of ease of service.
I couldn't tell you when I subscribed, but I've watched a ton of your videos over the last day. It brings back so many memories seeing and hearing so many recordings from radio stations I grew up listening to in NJ. One thing I can't get over though is the way you pronounce Technics. As a former "local" DJ that has worked in many clubs and bars, and have met hundreds of other DJs from around the world, everyone else pronounces it "teck-NEEKS", not "TECK-nicks". It honestly weirds me out hearing the way you say it. lol
That's the Japanese pronunciation. Some people prefer to say it that way to make themselves sound more worldly and sophisticated, but the rest of us feel free to Anglicize it, just like virtually every other foreign brand name which has adopted an easier English/American pronunciation.
Yes, I agree. I have three machines and one is a LX1 made for Sears by Sanyo that is an almost exact clone of your Pioneer/Tech from the same period with identical color schemes except with easy to gain access to interior components. I too like to use it over my more advanced machines because it too sounds good even though it has a chrome setting but no Dolby. The tape transport is really robust too. It's mostly all metal from huge fly wheels to the metal frame the door is hung on. I think it would be cool to find a higher end machine from that period too given I am impressed by the lower end stuff.
i'm up to the belt challenge advice, de solder and mark wires to the writing on the board at connection points disconnect the 2 plugs from technics bias board one is record (small 2 wires) other is probably the motor and record switch (bigger plug 4 wires) they were zip tied preventing tape mechanism from coming out. play head would also be soldered to the big board (grey harness of wires) along with the tape sensors for metal record and tape detection (white harness of wires) and motor is that long wire set that meets by the black and white set . i'm just trying to help i love my Pannys , done a RS-801US 8 track from 1972, 3 RX_DT20's from 1990-92 , RQ-309s 1972 and a RX-DT690 1995 i'm waiting to get my new RX-DT75 cobratop to tackle next. i love the challenge of making old school stuff work again. Btw love your channel.
Single Cassette, Twin VU meters, Physical Play Buttons and proper toggle switches. The classic look. But my favourite type are the top loaders from the early 70s. They are bullet proof and LOOK the business. Looks matter.
“There She Goes” was *not* “new” from Sixpence None The Richer. It was a cover, a much inferior cover, of the original song by The Las Stupid radio DJ from decades ago!
@@vwestlife don’t you dare badmouth The Las like that! ;) Im being silly. It was a college rock radio thing, I know. From around the same time as like, The Sundays. Before my time but somehow I came across that little corner of music, very late 80s early 90s college… I think REM was the biggest to come from that scene but I’m just guessing. It is the better song, though.
This model isn't that bad compared to the final boss of service unfriendly tape decks: the Alpage AL300. Trust me, this thing is a whole new level, a true nightmare to take apart, and even vorst to put back together. The wiring is insanely complex, and entierely made of wrapped wires (only a few modls were produced with detachable connectors). This means it's almost impossible to separate the mecha from the main board, because the wires are so short. The electronic part is allo incredibly complex (almost no IC, everything is done with discrete components and some logic gates for deck control) and spare almost impossible to find. But at least the Alpage is worth the suffering of fixing it
My parent's stack system that is still in good working order since they purchased it in 1981 includes a version of that cassette deck that is labelled Panasonic but looks much more like the Technics one you compared it with. It has a similar depth but proper RCA terminals and a 5 pin DIN socket that works as a line in/mic feed. I agree it looks and sounds great. Dolby is not the best but ok. Piano keys survived well despite my hammering on them. Always had a problem running a little slow even back in the 80s so will need to check if it had that service hole on the back. I'm pretty sure this has the plastic rather than wood finish as well
5:12 what a bummer! what have they been thinking? even if the cheap out on the jacks, they could have gone for color coding on the permently attached cables/connector would have caused no cost (at the assumed production volumes)
