Panasonic RX-1950 Stereo Cassette Recorder

The RX-1950 is a personal stereo cassette recorder manufactured in Japan by the Matsushita Electric Corporation in the 80s. It is also a personal stereo with an AM/FM radio tuner, full function tape controls, and auto stop capability. This was a high-end unit, which sports a built-in microphone, stereo microphone input jack socket, and auto level control. In addition, it has a pair of LED lights to indicate the recording level, and battery power. It is a heavy portable unit with a precision engineered metal chassis. The capstan flywheel is also metal providing excellently maintained speed regulation. In contrast, modern cassette players usually have mechanical components making them lighter but less reliable. This unit also has a very interesting and unique electronic design in that it uses the AN7220 AM/FM radio IC, and LA3365 FM Multiplex IC. However the audio circuitry is discrete transistor based utilising SMD components. Consequently, the sound is very good compared to all the clone-type units with similar audio ICs. In the following pages of this multi-page article, you can see the inside of this unit and the plethora of SMD components on the trace side. The complexity and construction of the audio circuitry is impressive, and today, manufacturers usually use an audio IC instead. This is a collectable unit ideal for any audio fanatic. Compared to the Sony TPS L1, the sound quality of this Panasonic is far better, and it can record!

Radio

This personal cassette recorder also has a built in radio tuner so that you may listen to the radio and even record onto tape. The FM radio reception is excellent and based on a Japanese design. Its frequency range is 88 MHz to 108 MHz. The AM range is 520 kHz to 1600 kHz, and is sensitive enough to detect many distant stations, because the selectivity, and adjacent channel rejection is excellent.

Tape Controls

This unit has the full set of tape controls including cue, review, rewind, forward, and pause.

Side Controls

There are three rotary controls. The volume and balance controls are potentiometers, whilst the tuning control is a variable capacitor. This lovely little unit can record from the built-in radio, internal microphone, and from an external stereo microphone input, which made it extremely useful. It also has a switch to choose between chrome and normal tapes, and other mode selector switches. On the front side, it has an electret condenser microphone, which is extremely sensitive and useful for recording. An option to connect an external microphone through a 3.5 mm jack socket also exists.

Power Supply

Four AA size dry cells produce 6 V to power this unit for approximately three hours of cassette operation. The operation time increases when using modern high-capacity rechargeable batteries. The manufacturers have also thoughtfully provided a barrel socket to provide 6 V DC from an external source such as an adapter.

Specification

• Stereo, two track system
• Automatic bias erase
• 3-digit counter
• Mono / Stereo selector
• AM/FM selector
• Telescopic antenna
• Battery condition LED
• Recording status LED

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