It's made for the left hand because they expect a busy executive to be holding a cigarette in his right hand.

The fact it didn’t use some proprietary battery is amazing!

i'm surprised how well built this machine is. metal case, auto reverse, ALC, even direct drive.

Still works fine today & it doesn’t need any updates , now that’s quality

Yes, it's a marvel of miniaturization, but also of reliability, two things that you'd think are at odds with each other. This little machine works just like it did the year it was manufactured. With logic transport controls, autoreverse (never knew that even existed for the microcassette format), and all kinds of fancy functions you'd think are prone to failure years down the line, miniaturized on top of that, and yet, look at it! Such a survivor.

The audio from the last clip could fit right into a humor horror movie

Oct. 5 is my birthday and I recently found out it was actually the most common birthday, at least in the US. Makes sense when you realize it's 9 months after New Year's Eve. I didn't want to think about that too much.

As a photographer of nearly 25 years, most of the time (and up until today) with Olympus gear, I love classic Oly gear :)

こんにちは！ 私は40代の日本人で、最近アナログの音響機器に興味を持ち始めたのですが、このオリンパスのレコーダーは初めて見ました。 あまりの小ささに感動しました。 ありがとうございました！

Very impressive piece of tech, I can’t begin to imagine how much they had to compress the hardware to achieve this. Direct drive is a very nice bonus, it certainly looks ahead of its time.

I was traveling with my family to the beach, and I always have this weird thing trying to find a thrift store in every city I go to. I found a very small one downtown, run by a very old, but gentle man. There, I bought my first Microcassette recorder (the black Olympus S924 you showed in the beginning). It still works, and I fell in love with it. Being very familiar with analog gear, I was completely amazed of how small things could get (the tape looked even smaller than I had seen on KZfaq videos), and I still catch myself thrilled looking at that little cassette in the palm of my hands for hours. Anyway, it is a very intriguing format, even tough it has no advantages in the modern world, where you can just record anything in your phone with higher quality, but still, it amazes me. I am currently looking for a picocassette machine, but those are so hard to find!

Years ago i worked for a NY electronic retailer and sold them, fell in love with it and picked one up. Great unit!

Today is October 5th! She sure loved October 5th for some reason. That recorder is so cool, but I've always loved Micro Cassettes!

New vWestlife video, hooray! This little tape recorder was such a technological marvel!

Oh man, a new VWestLife video on cassettes‽ Always a good way to end the day!

I actually own one of these. I think I stuck it away in a box somewhere. The thing about it that I didn't like was the light metal casing got caught in the items in your pockets. My door became bent because of it. But it sounded like you demonstrated. I'm thinking it was promoted as having an anti-wow and flutter mechanism, but I well could be wrong on that. Good video

Love these old tech reviews . I still have my original Olympus SR11 Stereo Microcassette Recorder with FM Radio. Although , my model was purchased in Canada , and maybe why it does NOT have any Road Runner branding on it . Olympus made Great products , high quality and still working after 40 years,

A real marvel of miniaturised mechanics. Brilliant..

7:00 Reminds me old TV news, the same quality!

interesting, beautiful recorder, I didn't think that format was used in audio, I knew about it and used it on the Casio fx 801p calculator to store programs in basic, thanks for sharing it, greetings

That is quite a nice microcassette recorder. I’m impressed that it has a direct drive system in it. It will probably still be going well in another 20 years.

The trouble with small tech is, it's more likely to be lost in the void that is down the back of the sofa, where things go to hide for a very long time... :P

I remembered RetroPCDOS repairing one of these twelve years ago.

Olympus was the king titan of the format.

Good Grief! I haven't seen an Olympus micro cassette player for decades... I shouldn't have been surprised one popped up on VWestlife... I am surprised you found one of these working though. Great stuff. Edit: It is beautifully made, a little jewel.

I love the microcassettes recorder this one look very neat love these kind of mini cassettes too

I got one of these in 1995 at Service Merchandise after a price drop. Still have it to this day! plus i'm a lefty so it's natural for me to use.

4:40 - Being awkward to use with the right hand means it's unlikely to be activated by accident. As a lefty, I cannot picture any company intentionally targeting left handed users, especially a company based in Japan where forcing left handed kids to switch hands had been the norm for centuries..

Every October 5th now, I am going to think of this video. Loved it!

awesome vidya as always bud. id like to see a modern smartphone last this long

Great video! And Olympus (OM System now) is actually still making small-sized voice recorders with full functions and features. I have been using their LS-P2 from 2016, not much bigger than a lighter but with 3 condenser mics, supports 24/96 linear PCM recording, and a full metal build powered by one AAA battery - just like this Pearlcorder

Hey West, thanks for showing us this. I always thought the Sony M-909 was the smallest. I own it and this Olympus unit does appear to be noticeably larger. Cheers. :)

I have 2 different types of Realistic branded Microcassette recorders and they had the voice activation. It was good for hiding and bugging a room and listen if anyone went into your room and started talking.

I think I once had a Pearlcorder S924, the black one you showed, it was OK, simple but did its job. Olympus made so many microcassette recorders, which makes sense since they developed the format.

Olympus needs to make new Microcassette players again, because I used to record them in college class, we had to record our speeches and send them to the professor. I want to be able to listen to my old recordings, especially the guest speakers!

I think this thing appeared in Better Call Saul. Seen used by Kim Wexler a couple of times. I couldn't find the scene where it appeared the most.

Incredible miniaturization. Thank you for this video!

I just so happen to have one of those recorders. I recently got it from Goodwill.

In high school I had a Sharp portable CD player that was barely larger than a CD case, while all classmates had bulky Sony Discmans 😎

That's what i love about 80's and 90's japanese electronics, so well made, and amazing engineering to shrink all those electro mechanisms as small as possible when physical formats were the rule.

I like the name Pearlcorder. Still have mine.

You should've held on to this video and released it on Oct. 5th.

The only standard size cassette player I can remember I had that had full logic control, metal tape selection, auto reverse, dolby noise reduction and was only fractionally bigger than the cassette was a JVC running off a single AA. I wonder if Olympus made the mech and electronics themselves? It certainly is a masterpiece of miniaturisation.

very useful demo. cute and practical machine.

Marvellous mini documentary on the product🤍💙👌🏼 Hope you do one featuring the journey of the mefia gormat too.👍🏻 Microcassetted and cassettes

I really wish physical media like cassettes an discs didn't go out o style...

This is how I gauge peak dork. "Did you have a microcassette recorder in the 90's even though it was completely unnecessary?" Yeah I did

beautiful machine. Thank you for the video.

Such a beautiful little device.

beautiful piece of engineering

I've always been a fan of Olympus dictation machines. Built to last. I've had one for well over 20 years and it's never let me down.

Very cool video, thanks. In the early 90s, had a Sony double micro-cassette answering machine. Worked awesome.

Used to have a couple of those Sony units. Used them for recording piano classes and they were great.

Sweet find!

Really reminds me of a Walkman with how small they made it and it's a bit odd to me someone who's into cameras seeing an Olympus brand tape player

Please also show one of the answering machines that run off of the micro cassettes for both your recorded announcement and the messages left. I always wondered how it knows where to find the messages. I think it uses a particular tone between logs, but wonder how the logic works inside. You always come prepared with an understanding of the history and every feature of the unit you review, as impressive as the item itself.

Great some other rare vintage tech I need to hunt for 😅

A very cool little machine.

Thats really cool!

What a cool recorder. Being that I've switched to digital I miss the older versions of those micro recorders. I have found though that my Sony 2GB unit has a better sound reproduction when recording music direct to the recorder itself. But wow - Thats neat that a recorder can come in that small style. Now I got to find one.

I keep seeing ‘143’ in my life and KZfaq never fail me. Another 143 in a KZfaq video. This is 7th ‘143’ on KZfaq this month alone.

I remember my dad having one and I thought it was so cool. Its kinda crazy to me that MiniDV/HDV tapes were not much bigger than micro cassettes. Considering a MiniDV tape is 65mm x 45mm x 12mm and a Micro-cassette is 57mm x 34mm x 8mm. Tape is such a fascinating medium.

I used to like those dictation recorders. I still have two from the early 90's. one should store them without the belts and out the belts inside a bag with a dehumidifier bag.

They are going for $60 on eBay. But thrift stores sell these for $7. The Olympus ones are to chunky. I mostly buy the Sony micro cassette recorders.

I own a microcassette recorder. I discovered that, if you slightly push the "tape speed" switch between 1.2 and 2.4 (so there is no electrical contact in the switch), the playback/recording speeds skyrocket to maximum (maybe at 4?)

I love mine, even have the "powered" electret microphone...

At 0:46 a Pearcorder 5924. Mr. Westlife, I still have my Pearcorder 5912. It's more basic than yours, that it has no counter. My 5912 stopped working about a year ago(it might just be a belt), but my Sony M-527V Micro tape Recorder is still working. Kind Regards, PS: your vid is very informative, I gave it a like!!!!!!

makes sense that it's a left handed unit, lets you take notes with your right hand (if you're right handed)

This would have been top-of-the-line spy gear in the 1960's, had it existed then.

interesting... things are starting to make sense!

I was waiting for you to put music on it and go rollerblading.

What a cute machine! I had one of those black Olympus recorders at the end kf the 90s, when I thought I was going to be a journalist 😅 unfortunately somebidy stole it and my journalistic career also took a nose dive 😂

94? Thought it would be mid 2000s tech. As kid of mid 90s, thought it would be like the size of home alone 2's tiger electronics tape recorder.

Ha, I was about to say that it was a miracle that the belts were still whole, but those gear teeth mean this answering machine-audio quality unit will still be working long after the last of the still more expensive Dolby-equipped standard cassette Walkmen have died..

That bit at the end scared me lol

Petition for October 5 to be World Microcassette Day.

SONY M-909, Smaller, Lighter, but no speaker or mic built in.

I had a cassette recorder like that RCA one you showed but mine was made by GE. Wasn't the best quality as it kept messing up and I had to keep returning it. I have one made by Sony and the last time I tried it it still worked but the belts seem to be getting weak. Toted that thing around with me everywhere and recorded everything with it.

awesome, i got aware of this neat device by chance 2y ago or so. and bought one. fully working. my idea was to make a reel2reel mini tape for the dollhouse. so i got finaly 2 of them, one is a bit defective and will be slaugthered and modified. i want the first fully working r2r tape for a dollhjouse definitely, lol. i hope i dont forget to make pics and videos, as i usually forget about documenting it.

When you mentioned the lady that owned the Olympus Pearlcorder L400 tape recorder before you who did a test recording, the thought that raced through my mind as I heard it was: "October 5? When? At this point, that October 5 could have been as recent as just a couple of months ago or she could have made that test recording back when (if) she purchased it new in 1992, and that was about 31 years ago." That is why if one is doing a test recording in which one is announcing the date they made it, it is important to say the entire date: for example, "Today is Monday, January 22, 2024," with once being more than enough.

There was a format between standard cassettes and microcassette. I was, predictably, called minicassette. I don't think it had very wide acceptance, though.

Too bad the stereo version of micro-cassette didn't work out.. this could have been a sweet shirt-pocket music player... especially with it being that easy on its single battery...

I had an Olympus micro cassette recorder back the. I believe there was a Panasonic stereo Recorder deck that used microcassettes. 😊

Sony won't be beaten! the M-909 :) Great show Kevin, thanks for the close up details.

Great video. I managed to pick up one of these on Gumtree a couple of years ago for about $40 Australian. In very good condition. I was interested to hear your comment that it's most likely direct drive. Would hate to have to change belts on a device so small. Have you opened yours up and looked inside?

There are smaller cassette formats for small recorder devices: Mini-Cassette (Philips, 1967), Picocassette (Dictaphone & JVC collaboration, 1985) and NT cassette (Sony 1992). But, as already pointed out, Microcassette was the only format (not counting the ubiquitous Compact Cassette) that made any significant success.

I wonder if they had AC bias or DC bias? At this price, it should be AC bias. The bad DC bias really makes music recorded on these microcassettes sound terrible. But an AC bias machine could make them sound about as good as they can sound. I'm willing to bet that if it does have AC bias, it will sound 1/2 decent.

Today is October 5th!

I love microcassette

I would've been crazy enough to use this for music.

October 5th is my birthday!

@6:35 - It was 1992 and I put my tape on the secretary desk. 4 years later - when I finally got a secretary, I advised her of the tape that I needed transcribed and she thought I was a creeper. She relocated the next day. The next secretary will probably handle it better. I am still waiting.

Very cool. I'm actually surprised that Sony didn't make a smaller unit for their NTC-120 tapes.

So Cute..

"today is october fifth today is october fifth today is october fifth today is october fifth" will haunt my dreams.

Great little unit. I used to use mine to interrogate and blackmail people back in the day

sickkkk

We have a GE microcassette recorder and loads of blank tapes. It had a mic jack so we went and recorded sound files from the JFK assassination and a few other news stories... What's today's date again?

It would have been interesting, as tape data storage capacity increased for computers _(LTO, DAT-Tape and so on),_ if these size of tapes _(ignoring the player for a moment)_ had featured in laptops as an archiving data _(and emergency recovery)_ medium so that, by today's standards they'd have continued doing so but also perhaps moved on for usage in RaspberryPi sized computers. So the assumption is that there still would have been a hard-drive and optical media (DVDRW), but tapes, with reasonably large storage capacity for data, could have bulk written _(or restored)_ data whilst plugged into the mains _(maybe as a laptop charges)._ Just a thought experiment that is. by today's tape standards, there would probably be a respectable amount of data such as for an initial computer system-image after first installing an OS or even after the first updates _(not necessarily including homework or holiday photos, although an extra tape might get used for that)._ Such a computer-tape for data would not operate or use power all that often. It would mostly sit there for emergencies, already half full of data. A carputer might have been able to use it, especially with a double tape-deck _(so another 2nd tape might store 3D Geospatial, mapping and audio-picture media data, but also from weather satellite, RADAR and SoftwareDefinedRadio uploading data-modes for prepping, like LoRaWAN_Chirps with say maybe a shell script or something in Gambas)._ Between the 2 tape-decks, a small tape-changer could have, for instance, swapped out extra tapes to make exact copies (scheduled to do so). My comment has no hate in it and I do no harm. I am not appalled or afraid, boasting or envying or complaining... Just saying. Psalms23: Giving thanks and praise to the Lord and peace and love. Also, I'd say Matthew6.

It's like a swiss watch compared to the other recorders in the video.