Two distinct varieties of audio cassette recorders have developed since cassettes were first introduced in the mid-Sixties. One follows the original reasoning behind the cassette as a small, compact medium for recording and playing back audio information. The other is a spin-off from this, the use of the cassette as a very high fidelity device capable of delivering exceptional sound quality in a very small format. The latter has been made possible through the invention and application of noise reduction systems such as the Dolby circuitry and the sophistication of the internal mechanism of the cassette player to achieve excellent tape stability. But the price of these ‘cassette decks’ (they contain no speakers and are meant to be used with a stereo system) is over two hundred dollars with noise reduction and they are an event unto themselves which we’ll take up in another column.

The original purpose of the cassette system was to make tape recording an easy, hands-off process, as self-contained as possible. The ‘portable’ cassettes now on the market have followed through with this idea remarkably well, mostly through engineering efforts in the land of the rising sun. It’s now possible to have a complete audio record/playback unit that is no larger than two packs of cigarettes (well, almost) and capable of doing everything larger tape recorders can do (well, almost).

There is a certain amount of high end, treble ‘hiss’ which you’ll notice when playing cassettes — no matter whether they’re prerecorded or you record them yourself. This is inherent in the cassette and can only be eliminated by getting a larger, non-portable unit with noise reduction. If you play back the cassettes on the speakers built-in to the cassette machine, you won’t notice this hiss. If you pump them through a hi-fi system, you will; you’ll have to reduce the amount of treble on the controls, leaving a good deal of the high end missing and the playback sounding slightly flat. All this depends on what you’re going to use the cassette machine for: high quality recordings; recording lectures, radio shows, and other spoken word events; making rough recordings of live music. For all but the first the cassette machine works admirably.

The factors involved in buying one of these portable cassette machines break down into several categories: size, price, functions, and power system. Size and price go hand in hand. The less you pay for a portable, the larger (in relation to the more expensive units) the portable will be. The Panasonic RO-413S, Superscope C-101, and Toshiba units illustrated here are all examples of semicompact machines selling for well under $100. These units work very well and the only drawback is that you can get smaller machines to do the same job.

Very few of the portablev cassette machines are made for stereo recording. Sony makes a couple of models, priced between $150 and $200, but they are, of necessity, larger since the circuitry is twice as complex as the mono machines. All of the non-portable machines are stereo, but, again, the purposes to which the stereo machines are being put is different from the handy ‘record anywhere’ mono recorders. Some of them have AM/FM Stereo/FM Mono radio combinations built-in, but again the size goes up and so does the price — although you can get a cassette machine with built-in radio for around $100.

The real mini-cassette machines inalude those made by AIWA (their Tp-747), Sony (their TC-40A, TC-45, and TC-55), Panasonic (their RQ-210S), and Radio Shack (their Realistic ‘Minisette’). These ultra-compact machines have both advantages and drawbacks. On the plus side, they are very, very small and recprd just as well as the larger portables. But to counter this, the best of them are up to $50 more expensive than their bigger counterparts, they need external adaptors to run on ac house current (sometimes up to $20 for the adaptor), and their built-in speakers are so small that the sound they reproduce is minimal.

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These mini’s as well as the larger portables have built-in electret condenser mikes. This means that you don’t need to carry an extra microphone with you, just point the mike built-in to the cassette machine and record. But it’s an old Japanese electronic proverb; “farther away mike is from source of noise, more hiss you get.” Since there’s hiss to start with, using a built-in mike at any distance sounds like you were recording under Niagra Falls. If you are going to be doing any serious voice recording, plan on the extra $10 to $20 for an external mike.

I don’t mean to sound negative about cassette recorders, especially the very small ones. I’ve had about five different Sonys (I collect them) over the past few years and my new toy is the Sony TC-55. It’s a beautifully constructed machine, designed to provide excellent operation, small size, and dependability into a unit that costs just under $150. There are independent function buttons — plav, record, forward, rewind, pause

— which stay down when you push them in. Many decks require you to hold the unit down for forward and rewind; there’s a switch which changes the mike response for either music or speech recording; there’s even automatic shut-off at the end of the tape and a digital tape footage counter. All in a battery operated unit measuring less than six inches high, four inches deep, and one ,and a half inches wide. It’s a brilliant piece of Sony engineering and I’m totally satisfied with it.

If you are planning to buy a small cassette machine to carry around with you, spend as much as you’ve got for as small a unit as you can get. That’s the real advantage of the cassette machine and if you have to wait until you get the extra ten or twenty' bucks before you buy, be patient, it’s worth the wait.