Restoring Granada!

Restoration of Granada VT-800 "Voice Lead" reel to reel vintage tape recorder. This machine is also featured in the Vintage Tape Recorder Hall of Fame at:

http://www.vintagetaperecorderhof.com



I caught the music from the radio, but they did NOT announce what it was. I was looking for the song "Granada", and if I had any sense, I would have looked here on YouTube because you all post EVERYTHING! Well, live and learn. I love YouTube. What a brilliant thing it is.

In the 1960's a little reel to reel portable vintage tape recorder was made by Granada. It came in a mahogany case and had a beautiful design. 40 years later, a machine sold on E-Bay suffered from hardened rubber drive wheels, lost parts, a worn motor, and a blown amplifier. Could it ever be made to work again? I wasn't so sure!

This video shows how I restored the machine to functionality by cleaning the rubber drive parts (similar to my video on the Mayfair 1600), replacing the lost parts and restoring the amplifier by replacing a blown electrolytic capacitor using the method described by Cassette Master (also on YouTube)-- which I also used in restoring a Mayfair 1607 (also on YouTube.) THANKS, Cassette Master!

The result is a machine that has a charming sound, if a little too much wow and flutter and a still noisy motor. But it looks so beautiful; one has to forgive the shortcomings.

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Restoring Granada is sponsored by ClydeSight Production's COUNT MY TEXT! character and word counting and optimizing software. It is ideal for users of YouTube, Xanga, DIGG, MYSPACE, bloggers and others who submit text information to Social Internet Web sites. Many such sites limit character counts in profiles and comments sections. COUNT MY TEXT! not only allows you to compose and count your text for submission off-line, it OPTIMIZES it for you, stripping out redundant spaces and extraneous codes so you can make maximum use of the limited space the social Internet sites allow. It is also very useful for optimizing Keywords, Title and Description tags for SEO on Web sites. For more information, please visit:

http://www.clydesight.com/cmt/

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Note: The Granada VT-800 "Voice Lead" vintage reel to reel tape recorder is part of the ClydeSight Collection and is NOT FOR SALE.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• clydesight
• Granada
• reel
• tape
• recorder
• electronics
• audio
• vintage
• technology

[krejzikrep]

interesting toy. I have the same device in my collection. but is broken :(

[clydesight]

@krejzikrep Thanks for your comment.

I think we may have a translation problem here.

The Granada is not a toy (although it has entertainment value, as a toy does). Its a real machine that performs a real function. In the 1960's these machines were sold to do real work. But of course, you could "play" with them as well.

I'm going to watch your videos.

[Jimmyhaflinger]

I once had this same recorder, i got mine out of a dumpster, it was in desperately bad shape with a waterlogged wood cabinet, slight rust/oxide all over the interior parts, a couple of crappy hack repairs, seized speaker, missing head cover and so on... i ended up dismantling it and kept the cabinet as a storage box... but the motor of my Granada was running fine and was just about the only working part of the recorder!!

[clydesight]

@Jimmyhaflinger I am amazed at some of the things that happen to these machines!

[rier90]

the wooden case looks so great. wood + shiny metal = great electronics. nothing compared to todays plastic stuff.

[clydesight]

Thanks rier90!

I like the case a lot, and it is in very good shape. Wood, in today's market? LOL!

Now, a wooden iPhone, wouldn't THAT be something?

There are great designs around today, very futuristic, but not the warmth we saw in the 60's and 70's.

[clydesight]

I saw a bunch of these on E-Bay for a while, then they seemed to disappear. That Voice Lead could work during someone's sleep, but, what if they snored? That would trip the Voice Lead! A whole tape of snoring? Hmmm...

[ToastmachineIdiot]

I think I almost bought this on Ebay when I was looking for a machine. It was definitely different looking!

That Voice Lead thing could be a great tool to record anyone talking in their sleep. haha!

[clydesight]

That was a very funny movie! "Evan Almighty" (a sequel?) was also very funny and in a way, quite charming!

[wooferfreak]

just like bruce almighty CLAP ON !