PHLLIPS EL315/15 TAPE RECORDER, 1960's

Popular tape recorder of the 1960's using 5inch reels of magnetic tape supplied with a crystal microphone.

Your comments:

• After much arm-twisting, I got my poor old Dad to get one of these in c.1960. I used it extensively for recording broadcasts about early blues which The Third Programme (now Radio 3) used to do occasionally. Also I regularly recorded folk programmes & anything to do with Chet Atkins, then one of my favourite guitarists. I've progressively transferred them to cassette, CD & then ripped to digital. I still listen to them. Great!
  .......... Roger Clarke, Windsor, Berks, England., 7th of August 2014
  
  
• I've still got the one I bought with money from my newspaper round early in the 1960's. I've also got some dreadful recordings of "Top of the Pops" made with the microphone held in front of the TV!
  
  The recorder could also take 7 inch reels of tape, but then the lid would not go on.
  
  It could even play in stereo! There is a socket and cable for joining two of these recorders together so that one would play back the right track and the other the left track. It couldn't record stereo.
  .......... Ken Odam, Ipswich, UK, 8th of August 2013
  
  
• I've still got one of these which I bought second hand, with a half dozen reels of tape. It is an amazing piece of work - still plays the rubbish I have recorded over the years - but also some gems of my children from an early age. It's a bit battered but still sounds great.wouldn't part with it for the world, even if I am now 77 years old..
  .......... alex dickson, East Kilbride, Scotland., 10th of July 2012
  
  
• this particular recorder was bought new by my grandfather in the early sixties to record messages from home, and send them on to his children in the US and NZ. They would then erase the tape, record their own monthly news, kids talk, music/radio broadcasts etc. and send it back again.
  And so forth. I had the recorder serviced in The Hague, Holland this year and after more than 50 years of regular use it runs and records as new. The recording sound is actually very bright, much better than that of a digital camera or phone. Costs, including original Philips parts, were 138 euro's, unbelievable huh?
  
  
  
  .......... rudolf de kater, leerdam, The Netherlands, 15th of May 2012
  
  
• What a GREAT web site! The GPO pages bring my late Dad back to life, as, with a break for WW2, spent on Atlantic convoy escort, he was in GPO Telephones from the 1930s to 1973 or 1974. This tape recorder or its twin, sits in my shack as I write.It was given to me as a 16th birthday present. ( I am now 62!) It will still play (slowly) but needs work to make it record. It is a 4 track beauty! I hope I have the skill to bring it back to its former glory! Brilliant site!
  Very Best Regards, Gary
  .......... Gary, Cardiff UK., 14th of November 2009
  
  

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