Truvox MK III (Truvox) 1951

Truvox where known in the market as build it yourself machines, the deck was designed with the recorder enthusiast in mind however it did come complete in a wide variety of cases. This one is quite unusual, where most machines of this era used magic eye valves, this, machine uses a coil meter, its believed that there was a lot of surplus military stock going around and most of it wound up in different bits of Hi-Fi, this recorder was also on the transitional stage of large Octal valves to the newer miniature ones. In 1948-9 the newer style valves came out which where a lot smaller than their elders though they didn’t replace them for quite some time as there was an excess stock of the older valves like there was of military components. The amplifier was known as the “K-Type” though this may refer to the later version with the miniature valves. Truvox where unique as they cling to a none standard head arrangement, the tape passes from the right reel to the left, the head, the head track was upper meaning it was playing the tape in reverse to any conventional reel to reel of its time, not sure why they kept this idea on until 1957. Another oddity shared with only a few recorders such as the Crown Imperial, was the breaking method, the motors do not have break bands, the spools are stopped by passing D.C. through a induction motor causing them to lock up, it was a good idea but the problem was if you press “Stop” on this recorder instead of “Break”, the tape goes everywhere.

Specifications
Era	1951
Customer	Domestic, sometimes used semi pro
Cost when sold	Unknown
Control type	Early Logic.
Max Spool size	7" reels with 1/4" wide tape
Speeds	3.3/4" and 7.1/2" / sec
Motors	3, capstan and two reel motors, the capstan motor shaft runs against the flywheel
Heads	two, erase and record/playback, both mounted 1/2 track mono upper track
Track configuration	1/2 track mono though tape goes from right to left making recordings in reverse to standard
Frequency response	40Hz to 8KHz
Other tech data	Valve driven using 6V6GT, VT-211 and EF-86 Modified from EF37A, same as Ferro 100YD
Special features	Very basic machine with no special features

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