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This is the rare Stancil Hoffman minitape, one of the  first battery operated reel to reel recorders.

I do not have a manual for this and I did not get a power supply for it, but I was able to figure out

the inputs and made a cable with a battery charger and to my surprise the old batteries that were

in there took a charge and ran the deck just fine. I think I figured out the inputs and out puts and made up cables.

The input and output are both microphone level and I did a test recording with it and it sounded better than I thought.

It is full track mono and uses 5 inch reels with the standard 1/4 inch at 7 1/2 ips. The microphone preamp sounds great

and has a limiter circuit card. I was able to record a full tape with the lid closed and caring it around the yard with a microphone

and later played it back and still had good battery power. The transport is a little noisy because it uses an idler wheel and

playback has a lot of tape noise compared to a modern machine, but for as old as this thing is I was very happy with the performance.

 

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