ELCASET was an analog cassette tape based audio format developed by SONY in cooperation with Matsushita (Panasonic) and TEAC in 1976. It was intended to offer a reel-to-reel system sound quality in a convenient cartridge format. The name comes from the expression "large cassette" or "L-cassette". Although the ELCASET used a 6 mm (0.25 in) wide tape running at 9.5 cm/s (3.75 ips), twice the width and twice the speed of a PHILIPS
Compact Cassette it became a complete failure in the marketplace and by 1978 it completely faded-out from the market. This happened mainly because Compact Cassette had a more compact format and the dramatical improvement with the introduction of new tape formulations such as chromium dioxide and lower noise with the introduction of the Dolby B noise reduction circuit.
The revolutionary SONY ELCASET system
 |
| SONY introduces the ELCASET system |
Below in this SONY advertisement you can see a side by side comparison of an ELCASET (the large cassette) and a
Compact Cassette (small cassette introduced by PHILIPS in 1963)
 |
| SONY ELCASET |
Below you can see al the ELCASET machines that were manufactured between 1976 and 1979.
SONY EL-4 from 1977 (left) EL-5 from 1976 (right)
SONY EL-7 from 1977 (left) EL-D8 FROM 1978 (right)
SONY EL-D8 from 1978
WEGA E4950 and Lo-D (HITACHI) D-9000 from 1979 - both sony EL-7 rebadges
JVC LD-777
Technics RS-7500U from 1976
TEAC AL-700
For more info about some of the ELCASET prototypes read
this post.
