BTR 1 (EMI) 1948

The EMI BTR 1 reel to reel tape recorder was the first tape recorder sold in the UK, the British (Along with the Americans reversed engineered the German magnetophone machines and created their ouwn inproved machines. The Americans brought out the Ampex 200 in 1947 and to follow a year later, the EMI BTR-1, both machines were very large, ran oxide out and ran at 30 ips to start with, later on they introduced slower speed machines with improved recording capabilities. The BTR-1 started out life in EMI's own recording studios, the very early ones would have been used in Abbey Studios and other EMI facilities before being sold out to places like the BBC.