Concert Grand tape deck

[electra225]

In order to not stomp on somebody else's topic, I thought I'd add this. There was a comment about Magnavox not offering a tape deck on the Concert Grand. Partially correct, but they had two-track stereo tape decks on the 1957 and 1958 mono Concert Grand models 300-H. There was a separate little amplifier to accomodate the second channel of the tape deck.

[TC Chris]

That deck was made by a company named Bell, think. They sold the transport part to various others. It was a three-motor deck. I've got one I bought from Allied Radio to go with a fancy tube Knight-Kit tape preamp I built. They also sold a big case to hold both. This was my first stereo device.

Chris Campbell

[walyfd]

That was my bad... rare to see early CGs. The later full-stereo versions didn't have them...

Seems like the first console with r2r was the RCA 6HF1 with the rebadged Magnecord from 1956.

[electra225]

The extra amp took up the space they used for the tape deck. The thing would have been massively heavy. Magnavox only offered this setup for a little less than two years, basically the 1957 models and some early 1958 mono models. The 1959 Concert Grands got remote control.

[Firedome]

Bell also made some very nice amplifiers, including a big EL-34 integrated amp, the Bell Carillon 6060, quite desirable now

1-Bell-Integrated.jpg (127.17 KiB) Viewed 2819 times

, and also made some consoles of their own, I saw one of their consoles a few years ago on CL.

[William]

Bell made some interesting high-quality stuff. Take a look at this link, it talks about Bell and shows the different models. I have the receiver, model 2521. Funny thing, it was in the Stromberg-Carlon console that I purchased a few years ago while in AZ. I'm not sure why someone would remove the original SC guts and replace them with the Bell, but it was a good thing for me and a good thing for Greg as he needed my cabinet to go with his SC guts that had no cabinet. I also discovered a different speaker in the SC cabinet. The second link is the speaker I found.

http://www.wingspreadrecords.com/Bell.html


https://reverb.com/item/62124080-stephe ... gJoKfD_BwE

Bill

[TC Chris]

The second link is the speaker I found.

Those Stephens speakers sell for about half what my house is worth these days, don't they? And how does it sound?

Chris Campbell

[William]

Chris, they are valued quite hi, but do they really bring that kind of money?? As far as sound goes, I have never mounted it so it just kind of sounds ok. I'm guessing properly mounted it would sound good. Maybe someday I will get around to mounting it, if I live that long.

Bill

[TC Chris]

Here's a photo of a Bell tape deck. You can see the similarity to the one in the CG. My device uses just the Bell transport and Knight electronics.

https://reel-reel.com/tape-recorder/bell-t347-stereo/

The ones in the photos have electronics controls in the lower left and meters just above. Mine has fillers there. I've also got a tape recorder by TDC Stereotone (a mono device; "Stereotone must have been added by the marketing folks). It's very similar--three big motors, pushbuttons in lower right. Mine is before they added "Bell & Howell" to the name. I've always wondered if the mechnical components weren't related.

https://reel-reel.com/tape-recorder/tdc-stereotone-130/

Chris Campbell