An unusual player for a forgotten ‘70s music format

This was mistakenly advertised as a Karaoke machine. It isn’t a Karaoke machine. Nevertheless I took a punt on buying it as I had the feeling that I owned the unusual cartridges it plays. In this video you can see if my hunch paid off and learn more about a rare format through an even rarer player.

UPDATES:
I) The machine appears to date from approx 1976. A helpful person on Patron spotted a date code on the speaker.

00:00 Start
00:40 The machine
02:16 HiPac?
07:37 What did it do?
10:31 How did it work?
12:48 The 50/60Hz issue
15:44 A look inside
22:20 Cart player mech
26:22 Blather
28:20 A load of carts
30:10 Inside a cart
31:51 Internal speaker
32:45 Blank carts & recording
37:03 Summary
38:43 Patreon credits

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Regularly asked question
Q) Why are there comments from days ago when this video has just gone live today?

[yawnberg]

This one hits almost all the tech moan bingo spots. I got "forgotten format", 70s aesthetic, Japanese media, and trade magazine all in the first few minutes. Could have covered my card if only that belt had been melted!

[RetroJack]

"I'll just take this jacket off as it's not required" - shows Phil Collins album "No Jacket Required"

Never ever change, Mat - you're a bloody legend! 🤣

[ahman]

Whoever designed this machine must have been so proud of themselves. So many clever things. It's good that you showed it all for rest of the world to admire.

[alistairmcelwee]

I love how modular it is. A device you could easily repair if anything broke. Wish such a design ethos was still prevalent.

[snoopyjc]

A big hint that this is a background music player is the 70v output - that’s used for commercial speaker distribution with a small transformer installed at each speaker - to avoid the loss in long lines

[HaralHeisto]

The "very serious" music is a genre known as Enka, and it is indeed a modernised form of a traditional style. Was incredibly popular in Japan from the late 60s through the whole 70s, so not a huge surprise that it's all you can find in a short-lived format from the 70s.

[NiGHTSaturn]

I’ll just take this Jacket off, because it’s not Required. 😂😂😂😂 Great job Mat.

[llLorenzoll]

I would like to imagine somewhere in Japan one of these is still being used to play the background music on some small mom and pop shop

[parkerackley]

I recognize the motor from when I used to do repair on Realistic (Radio Shack) equipment. It is a synchronous motor and you can change the speed by changing the capacitance. Be sure to use an AC-rated capacitor, NOT an electrolytic capacitor or common film-type capacitors.

[erwinvigilia]

Very interesting! The "70V" switch on the back was an "aha!" moment for me, as that voltage was typically used in PA systems way back when.

[WhoniverseReview]

"I'll just take this jacket off, because it's not required" is the best one-liner in the history of Techmoan.

[radicalham]

The way you throw in historical tidbits, like the decision from 1896 shown at 12:48, has become a staple of your channel. Truly educational

[nictamer]

Just connect a 400 nF capacitor in parallel with the 600 nF one, that will produce the desired capacitance for 50 Hz. You don't even need to solder to test it.

[MrTubeamps]

Hipac players were sold briefly in the US. I got one as a gift when I was a child. I believe the unit was called a "Playmate". It resembled a portable battery powered cassette player. The tapes were never easy to find and could only hold about a half an album's worth of music.

[RabbitEarsCh]

I'm really impressed by the forward thinking of having every major part in the device be easily serviceable. The belt is really easy to access, the heads are all interchangeable boards, every piece of electronics that could possibly wear you just slide it out. A much easier repair compared to a whole lot of the machines you've shown over the years, really goes to show how much care and effort these Crown engineers put into their system.

[RazorBeamz]

"It looks like this was kept in a very humid place"

Yeah, Japan. 😂

[joshmaresch]

I've been a subscriber of yours for many years.

For some reason, out of all of the channels I'm subscribed to, I look forward to watching yours the most.

Thankyou so much for doing what you do.. every time you publish a video it makes my day a lot brighter, and I'm sure it's the same for a lot of others also.
Cheers!

[reneartois]

CM is one of those sort of English abbreviations used in Japanese - stands for Commercial message ( コマーシャル メッセージ ) and is used to mean advert, like in a TV ad break/commercials.

[snoopyjc]

18:00 you can take a 0.4 uf capacitor and a pair of clip leads and parallel the existing capacitor to test if you can just change the capacitor. Capacitors in parallel add in value. Make sure the one you put on has a voltage rating equal or higher than the existing one.

[technophant]

This man is the hoarder/collector I want to be and I can enjoy his finds vicariously.