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Magnecord History

MAGNECORD was a US based taperecorder manufacturer. During the 1950's Byer Industries here in Australia manufactured some models of the Magnecorder under licence, import tariffs and transport costs were the likely reasons for Magnecord not to import finished machines. The first reference I have found relating to Byer manufacturing Magnecord products comes from the Trade Reviews and Releases page of June 1951 Radio And Hobbies, Page 71

BYER TO MAKE MAGNECORDER

Byer Industries Pty. Ltd., of 8 Dorcas St., South Melbourne, have been granted the exclusive manufacturing rights of the American "Magnecorder" for the sterling market. The new product will soon be available alongside the company's already familiar BRS disc recording products.

It has been reported that the Magnecorder, which is in the professional class of tape recording equipment, is used more extensively in the United States than any other recorder of its type and promises to prove extremely popular with Australian radio and electrical engineers.

It is understood that the first batch is already off the assembly line and, for the present, manufacture will be concentrated around the JA series, a twin unit, dual purpose combination.

The amplifier unit and tape drive mechanism are normally contained in separate carrying cases for portability, but may be extracted quickly and easily from their cases for rack mounting in studio or laboratory.

A feature of the Magnecorder is high quality combined with portability and adaptability.

A range of multi-channel mixer units is in course of production to enable two or more tape drive mechanisms to be coupled to a single amplifier for continuous program recording.