Audio Devices, INC manufactured the popular ‘Audiotape’-brand 1/4″ tape in the 1950s and 1960s. They also produced ‘Audiodiscs,’ which were recordable blank disc-media made for use with home disc-recorders. And they published an 8pp advertorial-magazine, of which I have a half-dozen issues. The magazine must be fairly obscure, as i have never seen any others besides this lot that I found in an auction.
Units covered, with photos, pricing, specs, and description, include: Bell Sound Systems RC-47A; Fairchild 539-G, 539K, and 523, as well as 541 magnetic cutter-head; General Industries G1-R58L and R90L and Model 250; Presto Model K, Model Y, Model 6N, Model 8\\-D, and Model 8-DG; Rek-O-Kut Challenger, TR12H, M12, V-Deluxe, and M55; Scully Standard and Automatic, and the Wilcox-Gay 3C10.
Disc recorders are a rarity these days – I believe I have found less than a dozen ‘in-the-wild’ in the 20 years that I have been digging heavily for antique recording equipment. I have found very small, cheap off-brand units the size of a suitcase, and I once purchased a circa 1950 RCA console-style studio-recorder for $30. But the most common units (that survived, at least) are the Presto Model K and the Rek-O-Kut Challenger.
The Challenger and the Model K both sold for around $5000 in today’s money, and feel like they have been around $1500 lately when I have encountered them. So these would have been either luxury items or professional items, but not unobtainable for a small local studio or musician.
The disc-recorder was a fairly common machine in the 1930s and 1940s, existing alongside the wire-recorder while offering potentially better fidelity. Both of these technologies would be essentially eliminated with the introduction of commercially-available AC-biased magnetic tape recorders beginning in 1948 (Magnecord, AMPEX, etc).
But for a moment (clearly, as late as the early 1950s), these media were all in regular use, although for different purposes, likely. That’s what makes this 1952 ‘directory of disc recorders’ so fascinating. This is likely the ‘peak’ year for the consumer disc-recorder; I am not aware of any new consumer disc-recorder models being introduced after 1952 (Neumann and Scully and some others would of course continue to introduce updated professional mastering ‘lathes’ into the 1970s and 1980s). There are no RCA units present, which is odd, as I was fairly certain that RCA was still making studio disc-recorders in 1952; I could easily be incorrect.
The professional Scully lathe is part of this 1952 lineup ($6k) alongside consumer models selling for as little as $175 list. For point-of-reference, that’s $71,000 versus $2000. The Neumann lathe does not appear here, as I don’t believe that they were yet available in the United States. It’s interesting to see just how pricey the Scully was – it’s double the price of the comparably-spec’d Fairchild and Presto ‘Studio’ disc recorders.
If you are a frequent crate-digger, you have likely come across old used (or blank) AUDIODISC media; the sound-quality is usually pretty terrible, but that’s probably more due to the equipment and operator than the medium itself. I know that disc-recorders were used in professional studios well into the mid-60s so that artists and producers could take-home rough mixes, work mixes, or finished product. Cassette tapes were only first available in 1963 and rare until the 1970s, and not everyone had a 1/4″ tape machine in the 1960s, not even every professional musician. But anyone involved with music likely owned a record player. I have some 1950s and 1960s studio disc-recordings in my collection, and the sound-quality is totally acceptable, although surface noise is a factor.
Here’s a scan of the whole 4-page segment. If anyone has personal experience using any of these machines, and especially if you are using one today, please weigh-in in the comments sections.