Audiotrine, from the UK, offered tape recorders as easy to assemble kits, using the Collaro transcriptor transport. The kit could be assembled in one hour and included carrying case for a modest 40 pounds that they suggested was comparable to other tape recorders costing 60 to 80 pounds.

The Baird name is synonymous with the invention of television – established in 1926 and selling the first set in 1930. Baird himself worked for the Government during WWII and died in 1946. The Baird company continued with TV and scientific instrument manufacture, merging with Scophony Ltd and continuing as Scophony-Baird until 1952 when they dropped the Scophony to again become just Baird. Tape recorder manufacture began in 1951, the vertically-operated ‘Scophony-Baird’ which was later marketed as the Baird Soundmaster was years ahead of its time. Several models followed, all using other manufacturer’s decks; the TR1 being Collaro-powered and later recorders like the Varsity 101 of 1965 utilised BSR decks.

Birmingham Sound Reproducers was founded in 1932 by Daniel McLean McDonald (ex British Thompson-Houston) and began producing transformers. Soon they were manufacturing the BSR ‘Ampligram’ self-contained gramophone/amplifier and direct cut disc recorders.

During the war (1939-1945) they developed an oscillator-based acoustic mine detonator and in conjunction with Decca, an early form of ASDIC.

After the war they moved into gramophone motor production, communications systems and eventually in 1959, the first tape deck, the Monardeck TD1 – an inexpensive machine with a 5¾ ; inch spool and a single speed which was used by many of the small British tape recorder manufacturers springing up in the late 1950s like Elizabethan, Fidelity, Dansette, Bush and Perth. The improved TD2 of 1961 and the two-speed version TD4 of 1962 were followed by a 7″ reel version, the TD10, in late 1963. By the time the TD20 was released in 1966, BSR could proudly claim that they were “the world’s largest manufacturer of tape decks and record players”.

Founded by Major JFE (Frank) Clarke and Sargent Alex Smith in 1946 (who had served together in the REME (Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers) in WWII) they started out repairing radios, and moved into making early HiFi Radiograms for upmarket stores like Harrods.  The Major (as he was always known in the company) heard that there was a contract for schools radio equipment coming up, and they designed  the required radio, amplifier and speaker prototypes in very short order, and won the initial contract against major companies like HMV/ EMI.

The resultant business kept the company busy for the next 30 plus years, including many record players and a number of tape recorders. The TR634 was claimed to be the first all transistor professional recorder that included a 10 watt power amplifier and the apocryphal story was that a number of other manufacturers paid the south London factory a visit to see this new advance in electronics.  Against the competition of Ferrograph and Vortexion it held its own, both of these still all valve (tube) products.

The company also designed a record player for the blind (where the turntable arm was in the lid of the player) and latter two versions of a tape based system, the latter version was in production for about 30 years and used in  the UK and across the world for “Talking Books” having the ability to take a complete unabridged novel on one multitrack tape cassette. This remained in production until the demise of the company with some 70,000 machines and millions of cassettes  being produced at the Wallington factory. It was replaced by the RNIB (Royal National Institute for the Blind) with the “daisy” cd  based system.

The Major was awarded the OBE for services to the blind community.

for more information

Collaro R-R transports were purchased by many manufacturers, primarily in the 1960s. These manufacturers would buy either the Collaro Transcriptor or Collaro Studio And design their own electronics and everything else to make a tape recorder.

Collaro was quite diversified but in the world of audio produced gramophones, record players and tape decks.

In the 60s, they were the largest manufacturer of record changers and tape transports in the UK.

1859 Alfred Charles Cossor established a company in England to manufacture scientific glassware.

1902 The company produced the first British made Braun tube (cathode ray tube)

1927 Launched its famous “Melody Makers” radio sets. These constructor kits did much to popularize radio

1932 Introduced its first cathode ray oscilloscope.

1936 Sold its first television receiver.

1945 Secondary radar for air traffic control became a key area of development.

1949 EMI acquired control of Cossor

1950’s Manufacture of radio sets continued after the war with fewer and fewer models ending with the introduction of tape recorders before the Cossor was sold in the 60’s.

1953 Cossor began manufacturing TV sets

1958 Cossor sold its radio and television business to Philips

1961 Cossor was acquired by the Raytheon Manufacturing Co.

1960’s Elizabethan Electronics Ltd founded in Romford Essex UK, a manufacturer of stereos, reel to reel recorders, radios and television sets until the 1970’s

1931 –  The Gramophone Company and The Columbia Graphophone Company merged into Electric and Musical Industries (EMI)

1940’s –  EMI made the reel-to-reel tape recorders known as British Tape Recorders or BTR machines were initially made by EMI in England after World War II. These first magnetic tape recorders to be manufactured in Britain imitated the design of tape recorders used by the Germans during the war.

1947 –  The first R-R model made by EMI was the BTR1

1949 – The first prerecorded reel-to-reel tapes were introduced in the USA

1952 –  EMI made the improved BTR2 model that boasted better fidelity, that was used not only at EMI studios but at the BBC. EMI started selling pre-recorded tapes in Great Britain. The tapes were twin-track mono (2 tracks) and were duplicated in real time on modified EMI BTR2 recorders.

1955 – EMI released 2-track “stereosonic” tapes. These EMI tapes were much more expensive than a vinyl LP record and sales were poor. EMI released over 300 “stereosonic” titles

1960’s – EMI built only a few BTR3 recorders, initially intended to support 2 or 4 tracks, but only 2 track machines were produced. EMI moved from making recording equipment to selling recordings

1918 – Founded by Joseph Wright and Thomas Weaire, started as Wright and Weaire Ltd. in London making radio components and instruments.

Post-WWII

Wright and Weaire announced their decision to retire and offered the company to Richard Merrick, Ernest Niblett, and Walter Berridge.

1945 – Production transferred from Tottenham to a bigger factory at South Shields

1947 – Merrick was introduced to Louis Fishoff who convinces Merrick to pursue tape recorder production

1948 – Weairite Deck prototype later incorporated into the first Ferrograph tape recorder that was delivered in early 1949

1949 – The British Ferrograph Recorder Company founded as a separate company marketing tape recorders, owned by Wright and Weaire

1950s – Series 4 – Model 4A introduced with two tape speeds, 3 3/4 and 7 1/2 ips

Model 4AH 7 1/2 and 15 ips.

Series 6 – half track stereo machine with 8.25 inch reels and using standard 1/4 inch tape.

1955 – Wright and Weaire goes public and acquires Ferrograph

1958 – Wright and Weaire name changed to the Ferrograph Company

1957 Ferrograph introduced patents for demagnetizing devices.

1959 – Ferrograph was absorbed by the Wilmot Breeden Group and begins making a wider range of products that includes amplifiers, radio tuners and monitor loudspeakers

1960’s – At the height of the company’s sales success, Ferrograph Patents the term “Tape Deck” as a registered trade mark

1976 – Releases Studio 8

1977 – The National Enterprise Board approached North-East Audio Ltd (NEAL) then Wilmot Breeden sold the Ferrograph company for £500k

1981 The Wilmot Breeden Group declares bankruptcy

1959 Fi-Cord markets the model 202 portable recorder built for them by Erskine in the UK in and produced until 1962. These were very small had some semi-professional features

1960’s F-Cord introduces the 1A a miniature recorder built for Fi-Cord by the company that later became Stellavox. All Fi-cord models from 1963 such as the E-222559 seem to have been made in Switzerland and may have been built by Stellavox. The Fi-Cord 300A was released. It was a portable reel recorder made in Switzerland. The Fi-Cord 101 S was small and known as the “spy recorder” of  the 1960’s

Founded after WWII, Jack Dickman’s Fidelity Radio Company produced cheap radios and record players for the general domestic market, especially during the ‘swinging sixties’. The Fidelity range of tape recorders used BSR decks and Fidelity’s own attractive contemporary cabinets. The first models, the ‘Argyll’ and ‘Argyll Minor’ were released in late 1959, the last model ‘Braemar’ appeared in 1968.

By 1972 Fidelity were the largest transistor radio and colour TV manufacturer in Britain, acquiring the HMV brand in 1979 before coming part of the Caparo Group in 1984. However with cheap imports from Asia, manufacture finally ceased in 1988.

1735 – George Wickes founded Garrard and Company in London and appointed as Crown Jewellers of London.

1914 – Garrard & Co manufactured precision range finders for the British Artillery.

1915 – Formed Garrard Engineering and Manufacturing Company Ltd to manufacture precision parts for the military.

1919 – Started producing consumer products high-quality spring wound gramophone motors for Columbia and Decca. Introduced Garrard 1 double spring motor

1921 – Garrard 2, Garrard 3 & 3 with single 1” spring

1922 – Garrard 1a, with 12” pressed steel turntable, winder, brake, speed indicator and Garrard 4, with double spring and capable of playing two 12” or three 10” records .

1923 – Garrard 4a and Garrard 9

1924 – Pressed steel turntable patent GB216823 was granted to Garrard on June 5th. Released Garrard 8 with long 1” spring

1925 – Garrard / Columbia 5-5a-6-7-7a motors models were made especially for Columbia Pictures.

1927 – Garrard 10 cast with 12” plush covered turntable

1928 – Garrard employed Stuart Philpott, an electrical engineer. Philpott along with an assistant, Edmund Walter Mortimer were assigned to design an electrically driven gramophone motor.

1929 – Garrard 10a with longer double spring will play three sides of a 12” records

1930 – Garrard 10b.

1930 – Motor development programme resulted “Garrard 201”, first Garrard gramophone and first Transcription Turntable.

1932 – First Garrard record changer the R.C.1a and R.C.2a

1938 – Produced RC100 (could play both sides of each record, and also mixtures of 10- and 12-inch records) to be market in USA.

1939-45 (WWII) Production ceased during WW2. The Ministry of Defence made full use of the Garrard factory.

1945 – Major S. H. Garrard died. H.V. Slade cut all links with Garrard and Company. The Crown Jewellers and The Garrard Engineering and Manufacturing Company Ltd became a separate entity.

1946 – RC60, the last model to play only 78rpm records.

1948 – RC70 with 10 and 12 inch, 33⅓ rpm and 7 inch 45rpm vinyl records, as well as the older 78rpm records.

1950 – RC80, the first with a magnetic cartridge

1954 – Classic Transcription Turntable Garrard 301, first transcription turntable that played at 33 ⅓, 45 and 78 rpm speeds.

1957 – Released one of the first stereo pickups when stereophonic records were introduced.

1958 – A serious factory fire occurred on March 21. Production was restored with the help of  Plessey Company an electronics conglomerate, which loaned factory space.

1959 – New Autoslim series was launched with help from Plessey.

1960 – Company was sold to Plessey

1961 – Herbert Vaughan Slade died

1964 – Introduced Garrard 401 (produced until 1977) to replace the 301. The 401 motor had increased shielding to allow it to be used with more sensitive cartridges.

1964 – Launched Model Lab 80, first record changer with the performance of a transcription turntable and unique adjustment features such as wooden arm.

1965 – Garrard SP25 with four speeds; 16, 33⅓, 45 and 78RPM

1971 – The Zero 100 automatic transcription table with its revolutionary tangential tracking arm.

1975 – Garrard DD-75, first direct drive player began production.

1979 – Plessey sold Garrard to Gradiente Electronics of Brazil and their turntable series production was moved to Brazil (Manaus).

1992 – 1997  Garrard brand name was licensed to other companies in the USA, which imported many electronic items built by many different and unrelated Far Eastern manufacturers.

Composer Norman Leevers founded Leevers Rich Ltd

1947 – Started developing tape recorder, the Synchropulse, a transportable 2 track mono recorder that could synchronize with a film camera.

1950 – Opened Leevers Rich Studios based in Wardour Street, in Soho, London and  released the Leevers-Rich Series C and D.

Post World War II

1951 – Registered Leevers – Rich Equipment Ltd.

1955 – Leevers Rich Heavy Duty Magnetic Recorder models C5, D2A, and D2B

1960s – Produced data recorders, and custom 1″ 8-track recorders for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

1961 – Developed Series E.

1980s – Stopped manufacturing tape recorders

Maestrovox was a British company best known for its line of tube based electronic organs which were designed and built by Victor Harold Ward at his Electron Works in Uxbridge, Middlesex. The first design model went on sale on May 5, 1952 at the British Industries Fair at Olympia, London, where it was hailed as the “Success of the Year” taking orders in excess of £80,000. It seems that tape recorder manufacture was a one-off sideline with only this one example sited, and the company wound down in 1970.

Founded by the Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi as the Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company, they eventually became one of the most successful manufacturing companies in the UK.
The company opened the world’s first radio factory in Chelmsford in 1898 and were responsible for many of the most important advances in radio and television

Early milestones…
1899 Formation of Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America, which was bought by by RCA in 1920
1922 Formation of the British Broadcasting Company, later to become the BBC
1924 Formation of the Unione Radiofonica Italiana (URI), which was granted a monopoly by Mussolini for radio broadcasting. Post WW2, URI becomes RAI, which continues to this day.

1896 – W.G.Pye and Co. Ltd.founded by William George Pye

WW1  – Manufactures experimental thermionic valves, bringing technical knowledge to develop it’s first wireless at a factory in Chesterton for the first UK broadcasts made by the BBC in 1922

1924 –  Harold Pye, son of the founder & Edward Appleton, a former tutor at St. John’s College, design a new series of receivers

1928 – William Pye sold the company to C.O.Stanley, now renaming it Pye Radio Ltd. They established a chain of small component manufacturing factories across East Anglia.

1937 –  Pye produces a 5 inch TV priced at £22 as TV broadcasting had begun at Alexandra Palace

1939 –  2,000 TV sets sold at an average price of £34.

WW2 –  Starts manufacture of radar receivers and army radio equipment

Post WW2  – Produces radio, TV sets, R-R Recorders & communications equipment

1953 –  Pye Records founded. Best known artists they recorded- The Kinks, Petula Clark, Status Quo, Brotherhood of Man, Lonnie Donegan & The Searchers

1966 – Pye, in financial difficulties due to cheaper Far Eastern imports, sells a 60% share to Philips. In 1976, Pye completely taken over by Philips, who continued to produce TV and audio equipment using the Pye name

1980 – Name changed to PRT Records (Precision Records & Tapes)

2006 – Pye Records name returns briefly

1952 Rudman Darlington Electronics Ltd was founded and produced their first Reflectograph model tape recorder

1956 The Reflectograph RR 102 industrial version was released and used by the BBC among others

1960’s Reflectograph marketed a range of reel to reel recorders and accessories under the Pamphonic brand

Source

Both Robuk Electrical Industries and Modern Techniques Ltd were owned by S Korobuk Ltd and were founded by Samuel Korobuk and his wife Iris in 1951 at Palmers Green. Modern techniques Ltd was the manufacturing arm and produced both the Motek tape deck and their own heads, both of which were supplied to various other manufacturers. The Motek decks were very popular but competition from Collaro and BSR prompted Korobuk to market his own recorders, under the name Robuk – a derivation from his own surname. The first Robuk RK3 recorder was available in 1960, followed by the RK4 in ’64 and RK5 in April ’66.

With the advent of the Philips compact cassette, Robuk, like many British reel to reel manufacturers, was forced into liquidation in 1970 and Samuel Korobuk joined Marconi’s Space and Defence Team.

Scophony and John Logie Baird Ltd merged in 1949 to form Scophony-Baird, located on Lancelot Road, Wembley, Middlesex

1941 – Simon Sound Equipment was founded by Reginald Simon
1940’s – special order factory amplifiers, wire and disk recorders produced in small quantities
Early 1950s – designing and producing magnetic tape recorders, earliest models 1A and 2B
1955 – SP1 which appeared on the market in 1955.
1957 – SP2 with features not normally found on domestic semi pro machines with fairly large output stages, typically EL84s in push pull. Simon also marketed an FM tuner unit to accompany the SP2 recorder produced by Jason, a supplier of constructional kits during the 1950s.
1958 – SP4 an auto reverse completely redesigned tape recorder
1959 – The Simon Minstrelle incorporating the Garrard “Magazine” deck
1960 – The Simon “Cymbal” also featuring the Garrard magazine
1961 – SP5 The last Simon machine produced. Hybrid tube transistor ectronics incorporating the HMV Voicemaster deck. This machine has to be seen to be believed. Hideous! It appears to have been on sale until at least 1966.

Source

TRE‘s origins lie in Eisler & Gilbey’s “Mail Order Supply” company from  1951. Tape Recorders Electronics Ltd (TRE) of London, UK, opened their doors in 1953 and marketed under the brand name “Sound”. They became known for their Burgoyne brand and the ‘Editor’ tape recorders, later adopting the early Walter deck to which the ‘Sound’ name was first applied before chosing Collaro decks after 1956. TRE also made machines for several large retailers- Civic, Retra and the like. Nearly all of them used a BSR or Collaro deck with “cost-effective” electronics. Around 1964, they began exporting into the US with face-lifted versions of their line, which was unsuccessful.
They joined D G Gee’s Brayhead group alongside Mastertape in 1965 but had effectively closed by 1966.

They were located at 784 High Road, Tottenham, London, N17

Casian Ltd of 27 Grafton House, Golden Square, London W1 was best known for this model, the Trav-Ler

(Train-Road-Aeroplane-Vessel-Lasting-Exceptional-Recording)

In late 1960, the rights for manufacture and distribution were bought by Aerialite Ltd in Chesire in December 1960 but the Trav-Ler had all but disappeared in the U.K. by 1962.

So then we see the Trav-Ler TT 591 showing up in the USA with an indication that it was manufactured in Chicago.

Perhaps the mystery will be unraveled by one of our members?

Truvox was founded in the mid 1930’s,  producing various types of  sound reproduction devices.

Portable reel to reel tape recorder Manufacturing started in the early 50s.

We don’t know when they lost interest in tape recorders but perhaps one of the members can submit this information.

In the early 1960s they got into floor cleaning machines and continue polishing to this day.

1936 – The Vortexion Ltd of Wimbledon was founded by brothers Sidney and Edward Brown

1937 – Vortexion CP20, first portable amplifier

1942 – Edward Brown died

Post war

1947 – Produced AD47, recording amplifier and EMI BTR1, a Magnetophon recording and replay  amplifier

1948 – Emergence of complete home tape recorder

1949 – PX4, a stereophonic amplifier

1950s’ – Wimbledon or “Super 50” was released.

1950 – Introduced 3/PPM valve mixer

1953 – Vortexion “A” followed by WVA, a monaural machine and recording being made can be heard on  the internal loudspeaker and WVB series, a high quality monaural machine with ” Before and After “monitoring.

1965 – CBL6 R-R stereo, versatile recorder that can record monaurally or stereophonically with its own mixed inputs.

1967 – The CBL6 was considered by some to be the finest stereo reel to reel tape recorder ever produced in the UK.

1968 – Briefly marketed the Vortexion CBL7/ T.

The late 1960s – Vortexion make the move into transistors