Selecting a Tape Recorder

ape recorders continue to improve so quickly that it is scarcely possible to collect reliable information about current models before better ones have already reached the market. Nevertheless, some guidelines for selection can be laid down. We have tried to give practical information that will help a nontechnically-minded person overcome the difficulties of interpreting recorder specifications. At the end of the article we have given a list of recorders that looked impressive to us at the time of writing. Some items may be out of date by the time of publication, but we hope the rest of the article will equip the reader to choose for himself. Major areas of concern in buying any recorder are: portability, durability, recording quality, and price. No one who has to carry a recorder very far will want one that weighs much more than 50 pounds. Some of the better professional machines weigh up to 70 pounds, and for this reason are not suitable for field work. Most line-operated recorders, on the other hand, now weigh no more than 20-40 pounds, and battery powered portables range from 7 1/2 to 15 pounds. With the single exception of the Nagra IIIC, the best way to get both quality and durability is probably still to buy a fairly large lineoperated recorder. But in a field situation where line power may not be available this unavoidably commits one either to a generator, which is heavy, bulky, noisy and expensive,1 or to a converter for running a recorder from car batteries. One type of converter is the vibrator, now largely displaced by the transistorized inverter. Unfortunately, the latter are not suitable for some of the more expensive recorders (these recorders contain relays and solenoids which will respond to the sine wave of a properly buffered vibrator supply but not to the square wave output of an inverter). The third choice is a rotary converter, which is simply an electric motor driving a generator; but unless you can get a war surplus rotary converter, these cost more than an inverter, and they are also inefficient. Should anyone wish to use a generator or converter, however, a good discussion of the problems involved can be found in Merriam's articles (1952 and 1954). Much the more practical alternative is to buy a battery-powered portable tape recorder. These do have real portability-you can carry one over your shoulder--and if you are prepared to pay as much as you would for a line-operated machine, it is now possible to get