The ELCASET is a short lived audio cassette format introduced in 1976. According to the SONY literature of the times the ELCASET was
"The Revolutionary Sony Elcaset System" while the Technics literature said that: "ELCASET, jointly developed by Matsushita Electric Co. (Technics), Sony Corporation and Teac Corporation" The main goal was to offer the handling performance of the smaller Compact Cassette, but with the same tape width and tape speed as open-reel for a much better dynamic range, frequency characteristics, and sound quality. This was not a novel ideea as a similar approach was made by RCA with their Tape Cartridge system introduced in 1958. On the other hand it seems that the ELCASET was based on the Unisette introduced by BASF. At a European Trade Show in the early 70's Sony and Technics received the drawings and specifications from BASF for the Unisette with the intention to build recorders for the system. What happened was that Sony and Technics about a year later returned with the ELCASET, a system modified enough to avoid patent infringments. The name ELCASET comes from the expression Large Cassette or short as L-Cassette.
"The Revolutionary Sony Elcaset System" while the Technics literature said that: "ELCASET, jointly developed by Matsushita Electric Co. (Technics), Sony Corporation and Teac Corporation" The main goal was to offer the handling performance of the smaller Compact Cassette, but with the same tape width and tape speed as open-reel for a much better dynamic range, frequency characteristics, and sound quality. This was not a novel ideea as a similar approach was made by RCA with their Tape Cartridge system introduced in 1958. On the other hand it seems that the ELCASET was based on the Unisette introduced by BASF. At a European Trade Show in the early 70's Sony and Technics received the drawings and specifications from BASF for the Unisette with the intention to build recorders for the system. What happened was that Sony and Technics about a year later returned with the ELCASET, a system modified enough to avoid patent infringments. The name ELCASET comes from the expression Large Cassette or short as L-Cassette.
RCA Tape Cartridge 1958
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BASF UNISETTE
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Microcassette, Compact Cassette, ELCASET
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ELCASET - Prototypes in Japan 1976
The first Elcaset prototypes were presented in Japan in 1976. Below you can see a SONY preproduction / prototype that with minor changes became the SONY EL-7 launched in 1977. The TEAC and Technics on the other hand are prototypes that never went into production. It seems that the Technics prototype included a track search function, one of the main features of the Elcaset where automatic program selection would have been possible with the help of control tracks down the center of the ELCASET tape. This feature was never implemented on commercially available units.
SONY
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TEAC
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Technics
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La Vie en Rose - SONY showroom Paris - Champs Elysees - 1978
