Unusual Olympus

[andy]

It's not quite an antique, but it's still an odd thing I found at a yard sale for $1. It's an Olympus STEREO microcassette recorder and FM radio. It can record from the radio, mic in, or line in on to a standard answering machine microcassette. It even has metal tape capability (has anyone even heard of a metal microcassette?). Another unusual feature is an electronic auto stop which shuts off the power when an optical sensor detects that the take-up reel is no longer moving.

It was in almost perfect condition apart from a problem with the audio amp. I had to trace out the circuit around the audio amp IC and volume control to finally track it down to a cap that had leaked an invisible amount of electrolyte onto the board. It was causing the left speaker output to feed back into the input of the right amp. It was no joy to work on. I felt like throwing it at the wall a few times.

It must have seemed like a good idea at the time. The sound is decent at 2.4 cm/s, but pretty bad at 1.2 cm/s. I might spool some metal tape into a microcassette shell to see how it sounds. I love these strange devices that never made it.

[Charlie]

I remember when this style of headphone sets became popular when I was in middle school... although I don't recall a micro cassette model. My first "walkman" style set was a Panasonic and had a very impressive sound. I have no idea what became of it thru the years. It's possible that I might find it if I were to dig around deep enough.

[london-ab]

It's not quite an antique, but it's still an odd thing I found at a yard sale for $1. It's an Olympus STEREO microcassette recorder and FM radio. It can record from the radio, mic in, or line in on to a standard answering machine microcassette. It even has metal tape capability (has anyone even heard of a metal microcassette?). Another unusual feature is an electronic auto stop which shuts off the power when an optical sensor detects that the take-up reel is no longer moving.

It was in almost perfect condition apart from a problem with the audio amp. I had to trace out the circuit around the audio amp IC and volume control to finally track it down to a cap that had leaked an invisible amount of electrolyte onto the board. It was causing the left speaker output to feed back into the input of the right amp. It was no joy to work on. I felt like throwing it at the wall a few times.

It must have seemed like a good idea at the time. The sound is decent at 2.4 cm/s, but pretty bad at 1.2 cm/s. I might spool some metal tape into a microcassette shell to see how it sounds. I love these strange devices that never made it.
Hi,

I had the dictation machine equivalent - SW77. No radio, but it did have a built in stereo mike and also had two speed, and metal tape option. Mine eventually failed due to over-use of the cue/review when transcribing minutes. I possibly could mail you an unused metal tape micro-cassette (you can send email from this forum) - the frequency response wasn't that great so I didn't use it for music afte a few goes and the metal tape were 22.5mins each side (MC45 I think).

I have one or two metal tape microcassettes with speach that I might like to copy if I ever find out what is one them, so let me know if you ever decide to put it on Ebay.

Regards

Alan aka london-ab

[Bob1942]

I still use a JVC D-M3 stereo microcassette deck with my stereo system.Also have a JVC MQ-5K handheld micro recorder just acquired from Germany.Have an Olympus SW-77 which served me well in the 1980s recording at concerts. Sony made an MC-1,I think it was.Small plastic cased deck for home use powered by D cells.Sony also made a very slim micro recorder which had an FM tuner shaped like a microcassette which fitted instead of a microcassette. They also made a "chunky" handheld unit with builtin AM & FM tuner.Sharp made a very heavy HiFi deck.
Metal tapes made by TDK,Memorex,Olympus,Sanyo,Sony among others.

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