Sony stereo cassette deck, 1974

The Philips Electronics Company introduced their Compact Cassette cartridge in 1962. The sound quality of the new format was markedly inferior to that of open-reel tape, but it had the advantage of being portable and simple. Philips licensed their design free of charge and its market increased considerably. Within a few years the format was available at a low price.

By the late 1960s, home cassette recorders began to appear that did not include amplifiers or loudspeakers. These 'decks' allowed consumers to make inexpensive copies of broadcasts and records. The Sony TC-121 deck, illustrated here, is a typical example of a quality cassette player-recorder from the 1970s. A few years before the appearance of this deck, Dolby noise-reduction and chrome tapes were introduced which, to some extent, overcame the shortcomings listeners had previously encountered with cassettes.

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