Beautiful deck, sounds great. wished the format stuck around a little longer. Noticed you had MPX filter turned on, this is used for FM radio recording, due to 19khz pilot tone (MultiPleXing) in FM broadcast causing Dolby to mistrack. For other sources, it should be left off for better audio recording.
@@ralphlauwaert2245 Quality-wise, yes, but the cassette was too big, tape too exposed, cassette and recorder too expensive, not portable and so on. Vast majority of people are not so aiming for quality, they were pleased with compact cassette, it was a convenient format.
@@phaenius There is a portable ELCASET recorder, the EL-D8. Yes, the format has some advantages and disadvantages. Personally, I quite like the big format of the cassette.. I collect different tape formats, and this is one of the better ones. I bought it very cheap, but needed to fully restore it. There's a thread on the website from tapeheads.net on the restoration of this specific deck.
@@ralphlauwaert2245 I didn't know about a portable ELCASET deck, you learn something new every day. :) I know tapeheads, I have an account there. Even if I could find an ELCASET machine here, I wouldn't find cassettes. :) But yes, I agree it had potential. Especially the tape speed and tape width was a great point to start with. But with the development in both cassettes and decks for compact cassette over the years, those ended up to be quite competitive.
@@phaenius next time you're on tapeheads, head to the restoration' section, you'll find a lot of background info on the deck in the video :) I don't know where you are located, but I found most of my Elcasettes on local 2nd hand websites here in Belgium and on Ebay Kleinanzeigen in Germany. (low priced) After a bulk-erase and degreasing (very much needed) , these are usually as good as new. You're right though, compact cassettes were much more common and everywhere, and with a goood tape on a good deck, sounds very very good also. If you ever need buying advise for an Elcaset deck, let me know.
@@thomasschafer7268 The brand may be German, but are you saying the machine itself is made in Germany? Why does my comment have 9 likes, if it's incorrect?
It was released briefly in the '70's as an audiophile cassette format to compete with standard cassettes. however, the format never took off, as most people had switched to norml cassettes.The tape is twice as wide, and runs at twice the speed of a normal cassette (similar to reel-to-reel). The cassette is also much larger than a normal cassette. It works very well, and it's a pitty it was never as popular as normal cassettes.
Antes no pensaban los ricos tanto en el dinero hacian cosas para que duraran y ganar prestigio ahora todo basura,y me encantaba ver las agujas moviendose,yo todavia los conservo y no hay nada como el sonido analogico de antes,sobre todo el placer de escuchar una casette o un vinilo.un saludo para los analogicos .
hi have a full track 1/4 tape i put in a tape to get the play back right i had to do the same as you i do have 3 decks picked up as parts of ebay all working now it was luck to get them working bob
Why didn’t manufacturers put those same controls on All vHS VCR’s? Vcr’s did not come with VU meters audio controls, or headphone jacks. This is a great machine. I wish VCR’s were made like that.
There are some older VHS Hifi models that has manual record level control and VU meters. The deck in this video has more in common with a normal cassette deck (albeit a different format and some other items).
Is it just me or does that cassette look rather massive? Or small hands? I got all my Now music & hard techno on cassette. I do love this retro cassette deck.
This is not an ordinary cassette deck. It does not play standard compact cassettes. It's an Elcaset deck, and uses a much larger format of cassette. The tape inside is 1/4" (like reel to reel). If you google Elcaset, you'll find some images of these types of cassettes compared to normal cassettes. The Elcaset format was launched by Sony as a sort of audiophile format when compared to normal cassette. the tape runs at double the speed of a normal cassette, and the tape is twice as wide as well. It's a really cool format to play with. If you're interested in this format, make sure to aim for the Sony EL-7 deck. It's the top of the line model, and better constructed than the EL-5 or EL-4.
Problem is is the more retro something is the more you pay. I have never herd of it but will look into it.. I love retro stereos with the VU meters, especially old school geto blasters.
@@equalevolution5563 Yeah thats true... I bought this one very cheap, but it was in terrible condition. It took me a long time to restore it, but now it's works like a charm. There's a restoration thread on tapeheads.net on this specific deck if you're interested.
Thanks! I have loads of old school technics, kenwood, pioneer stack systems, amps. As I’m a hoarder. I keep telling myself that I’m going to learn to restore everything. Then the government throws a new desires at ya & everything els isn’t important anymore.
Too bad Sony made a marketing Fiasco in tje mid seventies Great machines and absolutely beautiful sound. After all same width of tape as R2R I have a couple in good working conditions and two needing repairs but 5 places denied because they don’t know how !!!
Service is actually not that difficult. If you follow the service manual , it's all pretty straightforward. One tricky item is the calibration tape. There is a company in New Zealand selling one, and several others are selling just the tape, that you have to wind yourself in an empty ELCASET shell. Any decent technician with experience on cassette decks or RtR, could also work on this.
No... soft touch logic control was available much earlier. Look up from which year this deck (= Sony EL-7) was produced. Soft touch controls were even available on TEAc RtR decks from the mid 70's....
I record music on vhs- hi fi VCR’s. Superb sound quality. But my VCR’s don’t have audio input controls, VU meters or a headphone Jack. Why weren’t these controls put on VCR’s?
Q. So …was this Sony taking a standard type Reel-to-Reel Tape and placing it in a shell of an enlarged and special cassette shell? So you got the frequency response and dynamics of Reel-to Reel with the convenience and handling of a cassette format? What was the tape speed of the Elcaset?
3.75ips, double that of a compact cassette. The wider tape, in combination with the higher speed, results in quite amazing sound quality. Better than most reel-to-reel decks at that speed, and most certainly better than cassette decks of that era. However, cassette technology quickly advanced, and the Elcaset format was shortly lived. It's quite a shame really, that it never cought on. I have a Sony EL-D8 (the portable elcaset deck), and a Teac AL-700 (very very rare and very large elcaset deck) in my collection as well.
@@ralphlauwaert2245 >>> OOoooooo 😯 That’s all very, very Cool 😎. All I can brag about, is possessing a needing-for-a-special-skilled-technical-specialist-to-fix, was TEAC’s top-of-the-line-ever-made Z-7000 Cassette Deck and a SONY Professional portable Cassette Deck, which has (I think) XLR connectors on the side …ooops… No sorry, mine doesn’t, but one version of that era did. I also have two SONY top-of-the-line ‘something-or-other’ ….2000 SVHS Recorders Decks (both need repair). Somewhere out there in stored-electronics-from-the-past-land is a special small flat shaped device which connects between the two decks and provides a Video Editing console with related features, between Decks 1 and 2, which would be nice to have. And these two decks might provide a practical way to transition some important VHS tapes to DVD/RW conversions, which have a wide-range of important purposes. In other words, I am hoping to do more that repair very great collectibles, (which is an awesome hobby) but additionally do some practical and beneficial UP-conversion to more modern formats, for worthwhile benefit (inclusive of cassette to CD or digital audio. Also would like to get an older copy of Windows 7 for changing out the operating system on a removable-SSD drive mini PC, so I have an OS capable of downloading photos from a Synology personal server, (which for some stupid reason is not supported by Windows 8 and beyond) and would get us back (temporarily at least) use of Windows Media Center, which was an important feature in Windows 7. Although I’ve heard there are more modern ways to do what WMC did.
I don't do service on equipment from others anymore for now.... simply lacking the time and a lot of equipment on the waiting list for restoration already...
Почему элкасет =этот аппарат название бренда "Vega" , сделано же на заводе "Sony"... Или раньше до "Sony" pадиоаппаратура называлась "Vega"..."Wega"=это немецкий , германский бренд ...
@@nassoroburhani845 indeed ! Wega was a German brand, that made their own equipment, as well as rebatched equipment. The Wega 4950 was a black faced Sony EL-7. Sony actually made a Japan-only EL-7K (black), but that model is extremely rare.
Hi, you can look on ebay for Sony EL-7 or Sony EL-5 or Wega 4950. Prices have gone up, and most of these machines need maintenance now. For Sony EL-7, the top model, expect to pay around 1000€ in non-serviced condition.
ELCASET used different type nominations compared to standard compact cassettes. Type I is your standard FeO2, type II is FeCr and type III is pure CrO2. Type III cassettes are extremely rare.
