Weekly television digest (Jan-Dec 1960)

18 MARCH 28, 1960 NEW TAPE CARTRIDGES & NEW CONFUSION: The candidacy of tape as a mass-market competitor to the stereo disc lost week received cm important boost — or setback, depending on how you look at it — with the imveiling of” 2 new easy-as-a-record stereo tape cartridges. Most promising was the widely-publicized Mirmesota Mining-CBS Labs system, now virtually ready for production cmd due to be used next year by Zenith and Grundig (Germany), probably also Columbia and some other domestic & foreign phono makers. As demonstrated by CBS Labs Pres. Peter Goldmark — father of the LP disc — at last week's IRE convention in N.Y., it seemed certain to stir up another LP-vs.-45-rpm war — that is, unless it and its competitors kill each other off in a cloud of confusion. Thus Goldmark again challenges RCA, which has been marketing its own non-compatible tapecartridge system for 9 months. The 3M-CBS tape cartridge is ingenious, convenient, compact, has excellent tonal reproduction — and, backed by Zenith, should give RCA cartridge a run for its money. New cartridges are designed to sell for price of LP records "plus or minus 20 % ," employ brand new type of tape. Tiny cartridge (3V2-in. square, 5/ 16-in. thick) looks like a slightly oversized graham cracker. It plays up to 64 min. at lya-in. per sec. on new narrow tape only ISO mils (about 1/7 in.) wide, completely enclosed within the plastic cartridge. Five or 6 hours of programming can be carried in the coat pocket, and the tapes con be stacked on automatic tape player for continuous music (Zenith's upcoming set will play up to 6 hours). Home recordings can be made on blank-tape cartridges. One big breakthrough in the new development is preservation of good frequency response at slow speed ("essentially flat" response from 50 to 15,000 cycles is claimed). To prove this achievement, Goldmark played parts of a regular 15-in.-per-sec. master tape played alternately with same selection on new cartridge. Although there was some dispute among audio engineers attending the demonstration, our ears could discern Uttle or no difference. More confusion may be added by the provision in the 3M-CBS cartridges for an "optional 3rd track" on the stereo tapes. This track would not affect conventional 2-channel tape reproducers, but special players with a 3rd-channel amplifier would reproduce a "reverberation track." Goldmark said that CBS Labs experiments "hove shown that in [the] average living room, a much more exciting & realistic sound can be produced [by reverberation] , giving an illusion of 'being there.' " The reverberation track would contain "the stereophonic sum signal delayed & reverberated to an optimum degree." • • • • RCA's tape cartridges, which contain 2 reels and conventional V4-in.-wide tape, ore considerably larger than 3M-CBS's, and can't be stacked on a changer. Recorded at 3^^-in. per sec., they sell at $4.95-$6.95, vs. $5.95 for most stereo LP discs. RCA has about 100 titles in its cartridge catalog, adds about 6 a month. "Consumer acceptance of the RCA tape cartridge has reaffirmed our belief that this is the answer to tape recording & reproduction for the mass market," said RCA Sales Corp. Pres. Jack S. Beldon, when asked to comment on the new development. "Sales of our first 2 player-recorders using this system — one stereophonic & one monaural — have met our expectations for a pioneering product and ore showing steady increases in areas where dealers ore actively promoting & demonstrating the instrument." Bell Sound Systems, which makes 6 models of recorder-players for the RCA tape cartridge, says it has sold "less than 400 of them — but we feel sales are going well." Armour Research Foundation, which holds many basic magnetic recording patents, also showed a tape cartridge at last week's IRE meeting. Tape is enclosed in a half-in. thick disc, 3®^-in. in diameter, plays at 3®^-in. per sec. Like 3M-CBS cartridge, the ARF units can be stacked for antomatic playing — but they can