I've always wanted a Sony TC-D5 which was their professional-grade stereo portable cassette
recorder sold in various versions all the way from 1978 to 2005 but unfortunately these
days I can't afford one even broken ones are selling for up to $400 and even if I could
justify spending that kind of money and fix it myself I would never be able to use it
for its intended purpose of being a portable cassette recorder because I'd be too afraid
of it getting damaged
but thankfully I found what appears to be an acceptable substitute at a bargain price:
the Realistic Minisette-11.
it was introduced by Radio Shack on December 30th, 1981 at a price of $99.95 they said
it's ready to go anywhere records live in stereo or doubles as a stereo player when
used with headphones sophisticated auto-level circuit captures concerts or conferences perfectly
I was look enough to find this one at a thrift store for $39 including this vinyl carrying
case but not including the original shoulder strap which would attach here and you could
pop open this flap here to load your cassette and you can remove the entire carrying case
if you don't want it
it has a nice silver finish separate left and right volume controls so it does play
in stereo through the headphone jack and in mono through the built-in speaker but with
these individual left and right volume controls what you can do is you could turn up only
the left channel and hear that through the built-in speaker and then turn up the right
channel and hear that so you can still hear the two channels independently through one
speaker so that's kind of neat
and it has stereo microphones built in not just one there's two built-in microphones
there's a tape counter a recording and battery indicator it has nice solid feeling mechanical
tape transport controls including cue and review
despite the name Minisette it uses standard compact cassettes not minicassettes and just
like the original Sony Walkman it was based on an existing monaural cassette recorder
the Minisette-9 which was introduced a year prior to it
on this side it has your input and output jacks DC 6 volt input center negative there
are your left and right 3.5 mm inputs switchable between aux or line level and microphone and
that can also be used to record from the built-in microphones and then on the front is the quarter
inch headphone jack and the switch to go between normal and chrome tape the chrome position
can also be used to play metal tape but it cannot record on metal tape
underneath there's the compartment for four AA batteries and the information sticker saying
it's the Realistic compact cassette recorder Minisette-11 model number 14-1011 custom manufactured
in Singapore for Radio Shack a division of Tandy Corporation and inside the battery compartment
we can see the Radio Shack date code 7A2 means this one was made in July 1982 and that small
hole there is the motor speed adjustment you can stick in a small flat blade screwdriver
and turn it to adjust the motor speed
information about this cassette recorder is hard to come by but I was able to find a copy
of the owner's manual but it's in three languages none of which are English but luckily I was
able to piece together the information I needed
one of which is that it definitely can record on chrome tape I know some of these portable
cassette recorders they have a switch for normal and chrome but that's only for playback
not for recording but this one definitely does mention recording on chrome tape
I also discovered that the battery indicator works the opposite of what you may be used
to on most other portable recorders when it's operating on battery power the battery indicator
will light up solid and the way it indicates that the batteries are getting low is when
it starts to dim or it goes out entirely this one works the opposite normally it stays off
and when it lights up that means the batteries are getting low
I also found the specifications wow & flutter is 0.2% so not the greatest but pretty typical
for a portable cassette recorder signal to noise ratio is 45 dB the two big drawbacks
of this compared to the Sony version is that it does not have any kind of Dolby noise reduction
and the erase head is only a permanent magnet it's not an electromagnetic erase head but
it does have AC bias recording frequency response is not that great either 125 to 8,000 Hz at
least it sounds like they're being honest about it and as typical for Radio Shack products
at the time the manual shows the complete schematic diagram I have scanned in this manual
and I'll include a link to it in the description
when I first got it the original belts were still intact but they had gone loose and stretched
out so initially I just replaced it with whatever belts I had on hand just to verify that it
was working and once I did I ordered the correct belts for it and now I'm going to install
them the three sizes of belts you'll need are SCY6.5 which is the counter belt SCX7.4
which is the belt that goes from the motor to the flywheel and SCX7.0 which goes around
various pulleys in the mechanism
after removing the bottom cover you'll be greeted with the main circuit board and here's
a speed adjustment trimmer which you can reach through the hole in the battery compartment
but you may have better access to it just going directly onto the circuit board here
and there's another adjustment right here which controls the recording level it is automatic
recording level but this adjusts the reference point for that so if you find that the recording
level of this is consistently too low or too high for your tapes you can adjust it using
this trimmer here
to go further and gain access to the belts we'll need to remove the circuit board which
requires removing this tape holding these wires in place that will allow you enough
slack on these wires to lift up the circuit board and then you'll have access to replace
the belts
and now you can see the mechanism which is almost entirely made of metal including a
metal flywheel and all you need to do now is take this screw off this bracket then slide
off that bracket and then you'll have easy access to replace all the belts this one comes
off first the one that goes to the counter then the one that goes to the motor and then
the one on the lowest level is this one that goes around the different pulleys and the
mechanism and then you can't really see it but it goes to a smaller pulley on the underside
of the flywheel
I removed the counter belt and unscrewed and set aside that bracket so now I have access
to replace the two main belts
now I want to spray some contact cleaner into that record playback switch but I don't want
it to drip down into the mechanism so I put a microfiber towel in the way to catch the
drips so I'm going to spray that control move the switch back and forth a couple times and
hopefully that will take care of it
now the tricky part when lowering this circuit board back into place will be that record
playback switch the hole in it needs to fit exactly onto this metal tab here which is
connected to the record button if you missed that you'll either have no recording or it
will be permanently in recording mode
see I put it back together and now it's permanently in record mode because when I press play you
can see it's picking up my voice if I tap on the microphone you can see the LED indicating
that so if I would actually try to play a tape it would record over it so you definitely
don't want to play a tape you care about when you first put this thing back together until
you make sure you got that record switch properly aligned
you also have to make sure you got the volume control sliders lined up with the knobs otherwise
those won't work
now that the new belts are installed I'll give you a little sample of what it sounds
like through the built-in speaker which honestly doesn't sound very good but neither does the
one built into that Sony so it's about the same
"you're listening to the greatest little country music station this side of Texas and we are
only the greatest little country music station this side of Texas because of you the fans
who make us that that thanks for listening I appreciate it we appreciate it it's 10 minutes
to 4 here on a Saturday afternoon at Stirling Country 1070 AM New Jersey's best station
WKMB I'm John Kissel glad to be with you we'll be back right after this"
[Music]
now that the Minisette-11 is repaired I have the perfect tape to test it with this is not
quite period correct it's from the late '80s or early '90s but it's a Realistic Supertape
these were made for Radio Shack by Memorex and this one is a high definition chrome equivalent
Type II ultra high fidelity
so I can open this up
they did give you a string to open it but I decided to cut it open anyway and there
it is
take up the slack a little bit and otherwise should be fine
we can make our official first recording on the Minisette-11.
"OK this is my official first test of the repaired Realistic Minisette-11 with the new
belts installed speaking into left channel internal microphone speaking into the right
channel internal microphone"
"now I have two external microphones plugged in they're both Radio Shack tape recorder
microphones speaking into the left channel microphone speaking into the right channel
microphone now holding them at a distance for a greater stereo effect"
now I'll move this switch to aux and plug in these adapters to give me two RCA line
level inputs
for the left and right channels
here's the setup for recording a Technics direct-drive turntable playing various stereo
test records it's connected to this Radio Shack amplifier acting as a phono pre-amp
and I have its tape output connected to the line level inputs of the cassette recorder
so now I'll give you some direct hookup samples of how that sounds
[Music]
for what is essentially a souped-up dictation recorder I don't think it did too bad of a
job the main limitation is that permanent magnet erase head which produces noisier recordings
and pretty much negates any advantage of being able to record onto chrome tape but for playback
of pre-recorded tapes it sounds perfectly fine
[Music]
however if you're just going to be playing tapes then why not get a cheaper smaller lighter
and less battery-hungry playback-only Walkman and apparently that's the same question that
the general public asked because the Minisette-11 was discontinued in 1984 and it seems to be
a pretty rare model
but if you do happen to come across a Realistic Minisette-11 today I think it's worth picking
up just don't spend anywhere near Sony DC-T5 prices for one