Yes, 50 years ago, vinyl was king; some say it still is. But for me, playing records on my low-cost Garrard TT (Shure M91 ED or an Empire cart. I liked even more) through a Pioneer SX626 receiver, was not that great. Yes, I used the Discwasher, but that couldn’t keep up with the partying and carelessness that I was doing back then. The best sound I got was from the Sony 7” RTR I had. I don’t know if the Pioneer had a better tape section or it was the turntable/cart/debris, but the sound was definitely better from tape.
Another cool option with the Sony was recording music from the radio. Back then, there was a University of Dayton (OH)-owned station, WVUD. They played the popular hits but also sprinkled in some music not heard on the strictly commercial stations. The coolest was a program from 7-8 PM M-F called “Wax Museum”, when they would play an entire album for the audience to record. The program began with a tone, so you could set your recording level. Before the music would begin, that same tone would sound, alerting you to start recording; then before the commercials, the tone would sound again so you could stop recording. There were four roughly 12-13 minute segments for recording, and then you had the entire album. Sometimes VUD staff would edit the tunes so that one would fade into the other, which was cool when two songs really blended well. Alas, the university sold the station to a commercial interest and that was that. But for several years during the 1970’s, I had my tape ready to record albums. It was awesome while it lasted.
For those of you familiar with WLW AM 700 in Cincinnati, long-time talk host Mike McConnell (who also spent a few years in Chicago before returning to WLW) started his DJ-ing career at WVUD during the 1970’s. McConnell is currently the early morning DJ at WLW.
