My favourite forgotten audio format.

Elcaset was a little cul-de-sac Sony took between reel to reel and the development of metal tape that finally gave 'Compact' cassette proper audiophile pretention. Tape ran at 3 3/4ips, versus compact cassette's 1 7/8. Tape was 1/4" versus 1/8". It came in what looks like an outsize cassette case, and the tape was threaded away from the shell to allow consistent tape transport, versus the integrated pressure pad and consequent dependency upon good quality shell production of compact cassette.

Some info about Elcaset
http://www.elcaset.ca/
http://indiscriminate.tripod.com/aud...et/default.htm

The Sony EL-7
http://www.thevintageknob.org/SONY/s...t/EL7/EL7.html

Elcaset did not do well. It's size was a disadvantage for widespread consumer adoption, who preferred compact cassette, and audiophiles seemed happy with ferric tape at 7 1/2ips...

In 1980 or thereabout some Finnish company bought up all the remaining Elcasets and sold them off cheap to bemused Finns...

http://home.iae.nl/users/pb0aia/cm/elcaset/el-end.html

Does anyone on this forum have an Elcaset player? An EL-7 is one of the items on my wish list... a bottom of the line (but rare, apparently) EL-4 is up on eBay at the moment, but I'm holding out for the TOTL model; 3 heads versus 2