On Tuesday, 20 February 2018 20:46:07 UTC, Johnny B Good wrote:
On Tue, 20 Feb 2018 11:26:23 -0800, tabbypurr wrote:

====snip====


minor point: not all cassette decks had an always on motor. It was never
judtifiable for battery powered decks, and some mains decks didn't
either.

True enough. I just didn't think to include them. They're the type that,
when the operator forgets to use the pause function when recording before
engaging the play/record mode, will give that characteristic down pitch
squeak at the beginning of a recording (and the reverse effect at the end
if the pause function is yet again ignored).

I'm pretty certain that very few, if any, mains powered tape recorders
lacked a pause feature and likewise even cheap battery powered cassette
recorders (although to listen to some 60s and 70s documentary film sound
tracks, you might think it was otherwise).

Even so, only allowing the capstan to spin up when play or record mode
had been selected, wasn't normally a problem if it had a pause feature
(provided the user thought to make use of it for recordings - it's
generally not so critical in the case of playback).

the worst decks from the 70s had startup speed problems, but 80s decks with switched motors normally didn't. They made it work ok. Even some budget hifi had switched motors, eg JVC.


NT