First there was the ‘unit audio’. The increasing popularity of stereo in the late 1960s meant that the ‘suitcase’ style of record player was falling out of fashion. In its place came a record deck (usually an autochanger) and solid state amplifier in a compact unit with separate stereo speakers. Many of these had a radio tuner incorporated and by the early 1970s one or two top of the range models included a top-loading cassette deck alongside the turntable. The music centre was born. During the second half of the same decade the Japanese made that design their own and fierce competition resulted in the upping of specs to the extent that the most expensive models overlapped the performance of the same companies’ entry-level hi-fi separates. As we moved into the 1980s the preference for front-loading cassette decks resulted in the space-saving ‘tower system’ starting to dominate, which itself spawned the more compact ‘midi system’.
I have three music centres, but at the time of writing this is the only one that’s in one piece and in working order. Most of my ‘technojunk’ has been obtained in one of three ways. The first is by legitimate purchase and the second is stuff that has been given to me, which includes family hand-me-downs. This unit is representative of the third and rather more questionable method of acquisition – the skip rescue. As can be seen from the photograph, there’s some cosmetic damage but much of this would appear to be due to the previous owner putting lighted cigarettes down on it. This can be seen above the right-hand end of the radio dial and there is also similar damage to the front edge of the lid, which is a bit battered but fortunately not cracked. Also, an indentation has been intentionally drilled into the front of the volume control, perhaps to aid identification by a blind person? At present it plays into a pair of rather ‘boxy’ sounding Panasonic speakers which came from a different skip.
This unit is a good example of a lower-middle-range model of the period, demonstating how higher-spec features had trickled down the range by the end of the 1970s. As was common, the record deck is the weakest part. It’s a standard Japanese design comprising a plastic chassis with an aluminium platter, belt driven by an AC motor with mechanical speed change (the belt is moved between different diameter sections of the motor pulley). It has a basic counterweighted arm with a budget magnetic cartridge – a step up from the BSR autochangers of just a few years previously but not a particularly big step. Operation is slightly different to the the usual semi-automatic (auto return) deck in that the arm lifter and ‘reject’ lever are combined into one control. The arm rests in the ‘up’ position, so you position it over the run-in groove first and then deflect the lever to the ‘start/cut’ position which lowers it onto the record.
There’s a comprehensive four-band tuner but, although it has an internal ferrite rod antenna (not rotatable) for long and medium waves, and good VHF reception (in mono at least) can be obtained with an indoor ribbon aerial (as here), it really needs external aerials for both AM and FM to bring out its best. Short wave is of course completely deaf with nothing plugged into the back. I get the impression that few purchasers of this model would have made the most of the radio section.
The cassette deck is also pretty decent. The transport is substantially built although the operating keys, intentionally designed to be ‘light touch’, feel rather ‘spongey’ and cheap as a result. The auto-stop operates by sensing the rotation of the take-up spindle; this results in fewer mangled tapes than the old tape tension sensor type and also has the benefit of working in fast wind modes as well. The fact that the auto-stop unit is attached to the side of the mechanism as an apparent afterthought could indicate that this system was a new innovation at the time. The lid into which the cassette is inserted is also well made and attached by ‘piano hinge’, unlike those on Panasonic music centres which had a habit of breaking off (yes, my parents had one of these!).
There are switches for Dolby B noise reduction, bias and equalisation for normal, ferrichrome (no, I don’t remember those either!) and chrome tapes and ‘beat cut’ (used when recording from AM radio). The only minus point is the provision of completely separate knobs for left and right channel recording level, which makes the recording process more fiddly than it needs to be.
To the left of the radio dial is a signal strength meter and a red ‘power on’ indicator – in case you can’t tell that the unit is already on by everything else being lit up… There’s actually a good reason for this: the next model up has FM presets (it used a common chassis; the mountings for the buttons can be found behind the front panel, below the tuning knob) and a meter for tuning these is fitted in this place. Next to this is a red ‘FM Stereo’ LED. Other LEDs show Dolby enabled and recording mode. The two buttons at the bottom right are for ‘loudness’ (bass boost at low volume) and ‘hi-filter’ (or ‘scratch filter’ – a 1950s legacy). Front sockets are provided for left and right microphones and stereo headphones whilst on the rear are AM and FM aerial inputs, loudspeaker outputs and a five pin DIN connector for a second tape machine – playback sharing the ‘Phono’ position on the rotary selector.
Music centre restoration is an involved process. First of all you have to get the main receiver chassis up and running; there’s usually not much wrong electronically but most of the little incandescent bulbs are likely to need replacing (as can be seen there are five in this particular model) and the controls will probably need a good clean. Then you’ve got two mechanical systems to deal with. And the very nature of the design means that you can’t simply take the back off and everything is easily accessible. But the end result is worth it – a little piece of history from an often overlooked period.
The Technojunk Files 