More on Magnecord

So, I started cracking open these boxes with these old tape-machine elctroncs heads in them. It's like opening a time-capsule. I just opened a box dated Oct 1957. Do the math. That's exactly 50 years ago. This freakin' thing has been in the sealed factory box since 1957. Ike was president and Elvis was all the rage. I started doing some web-searching and (after I got the spelling right) I found some cool stuff about the company. Magnecord and it's "Magnecorder" began in Chicago right after WWII. These GIs came back, and if I read the archives correctly, their start-up funding came from Armour. Yeah, the meat-packing company. They started making wire recorders, but by '49 they had switched over to tape. Seems like they did really well, really fast, grabbing a big market share right off the bat. Like, $90,000/month. In 1949! That's a decent month for me NOW in 2007.

Here's a link to one of the many broadcst history sites which has the story of Magnecord.

Cool, eh?

Magnitude...Magnacord!

OK this is a weird one. We have a bunch of NEW OLD STOCK Magnacord mono tape electronics heads. Yeah.

What is a Magnacord, you ask? Well, here's a pic:



These all-tube tape-machine electronics chassis' were put in a box at the factory in April of 1960 (My mom was seven months pregnant with you-know-who), and have been waiting all these years to come to life. Seriously. 47 Years ago. It was like they were buried in a time capsule. They look absolutely mint! Brand new!

So why is this so great? Well, inside these boxes are all-tube mic preamps. You can plug a microphone right in the back, and there's a line-out, a tape-head out, and an on-board speaker (which makes the thing a stand-alone amplifier!).

Plugged in first an SM57, then an RCA 77dx. Both sounded really tubey and euphonic through the M-Cord. Fluffy! I joked that it made the 57 sound like a 67! And you can easily overdrive this baby in to really cool sounding tube distortion. We turned up the speaker and it sounded like a bad overloaded PA. Awesome! You could put a mic on that! Or maybe play a harmonica through it.

Hell, the NOS RCA tubes that are in it are worth hundreds!

We're sellin' em for $1100 each.

I want one!