Who invented cassette recorder

During the development of the cassette tape, in the early s, he had a wooden block made that fit exactly in his coat pocket. This was how big the first Compact Cassette was to be, making it a lot handier than the bulky tape recorders in use at the time. His invention came to be known as the Cassette Tape and over billion were sold globally. It also allowed people to quickly record audio and helped capture some of the most iconic songs. I looked at it in the morning — I knew I had put a new tape in the night before — but it was at the very end.

Apparently, I had recorded something. In , on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the cassette tape, Lou was our guest of honor, as we created a special exhibition to his ground breaking invention at the Philips Museum. Times Events. Times Store. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options. Lou Ottens, inventor of the cassette tape, in By Associated Press. Ottens died March 6 at 94, the Dutch electronic conglomerate Philips announced.

The licensing was a success and competitors like Telefunken, Grundig, and RCA no longer proved to be as significant. In the first car-compatible cassette was designed. By the early s, cassettes were the most common format replacing the LP records. The Compact Cassette endured competition from the 8-track tape but in the s the sound quality became equal to the 8-track and continued to improve.

A cassette was also cheaper which helped with its booming popularity. By the s the cassette saw a drastic decline after CDs were introduced. Between to , Philips believes three billion Compact Cassettes were sold! Such demands mean most households probably have some cassettes hidden away in boxes. He studied at what is now the Delft University of Technology, supporting himself by working half-days as a draftsman at an X-ray equipment factory, and joined Philips after graduating with a mechanical engineering degree in As he had with the cassette tape, Ottens insisted that his team make the disc smaller and smaller — in a word, compact.

The end result ultimately measured 12 cm 4. His wife of 46 years, Margo van Noord, died in In addition to his daughter Arine, survivors include two other children, Nelly and Jan Ottens; four grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter.

Ottens retired in and later said he had little affection for cassette tapes, even as hipsters and millennials helped reignite sales, with British music labels launching an international Cassette Store Day — inspired by Record Store Day — to promote the format as a throwback alternative to vinyl, CDs and streaming.