The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Sorry, you're right, it's not Recordio but Home Recordo. The ad is from 1940.
Charlie Barnet uses it!

OK, yeah that's "Recordo" Not "RecordIo". Hmmm. Never heard of the Home Recording Company. Same idea as Fay or a 'Kodisk" recorder. This looks a little more elaborate; wonder what the quality was like? Wish the scan was a little clearer. What year was this? I love how they suggest using this contraption to make your own home "talking pictures". You'd have to have a piercing voice like Lina Lamont's to even register on that thing!

Here's another that may be easier to read.

I like the bit about using it to "bring your talents before the proper authorities" to win fame and fortune.

Wow, wonder how long it took Barnet to live this "endorsement" down. Would be nice if you could still buy blanks at $.75 per dozen. A dozen 10 inch blanks now cost nearly $150!

scullylathe wrote:Oh yes, many companies made home recorders and I'm sure there were models marketed in the UK. They're not "common" common, but they aren't rarities either.

MSS was one UK manufacturer, and not long ago I saw some photos of a recorder made by Birmingham Sound Reproducers Ltd....the company best known in the US as the maker of cheap record changers galore from the late 1960s onward as BSR.

BSR...British (for) scratching records!

I used to have a Sears console stereo years ago with a BSR changer; worked very well. Don't know if Philco consoles had BSR changers, but a friend of the family had one and I recall something went wrong and if you put a stack of records on it would drop one down, drop the tonearm, scrrrrraaaape to the center of the disc, cycle again, scrape to the center, etc.

BSR changers were somewhat the scourge of the record changer world during their most popular years. The early ones, notably the "Monarch" models were about equivalent to the similarly priced Garrards. But during the 1970s, everybody was cheapening up everything and the BSRs got really chintzy. The little record grinders with the little lightweight plastic platters were the worst - both Garrard and BSR made them. But BSR did make a few nice models in their later years, notably the 710 and 810 models from the 1970s, both of which had heavy platters and could be operated at light tracking forces. There was apparently some cross-licensing between BSR and ELAC, makers of the Miracords, at this time because these models use the SAME (identical) umbrella-type automatic stacking spindle. The 810 is unusual for its era in that it uses a horizontal drive shaft to run the cycle mechanism, a design that had not seen the light of day since around 1950 in the 1948 Dual 1000, ELAC PW-1, and the Paillard Multidisc models. And the cycle trip in the 810 is a 2-stage design which borrows heavily from the Miracords as well. The BSR Quanta models of the late 1970s were probably equivalent to the Garrards of the day, but by then BSR had sullied its reputation pretty badly with its earlier cheezy players and the Quantas never made much of a dent in the marketplace.