I got it in the early 90s. It had a couple of issues. I had to replace one of the pressure rollers on the recording cassette deck. I actually got the replacement from a spare Commode C2N datacorder as it used the same mechanism. The record deck which was the biggest let down needed a new belt and stylus got both from my local Tandy. The deck was a very cheap plastic BSR belt driven unit, with a Tetrad ceramic pick up cartridge. I remember the stylus model was T30 MD. They cost £1.49 for a new replacement back then, and £4 for the belt.
I've repaired a few Amstrad systems in the past, including the SM104 with the vertical linear tracking turntable that Vampyre posted. That turntable in those was derived from the same cheap plastic BSR mech, same ceramic pick up, and not a true linear tracking arm. Basically for every 2 rotations of the platter, the tone arm moved slightly. It didn't know if it was ready to or not, and sometimes the stylus would get dragged across a grove or two, because the stylus didn't keep up with the arm. Think of a K-Tel compilation LP which had about 12 songs a side on. These had to be cleverly engineered to fit all those songs on one side. This was done by increasing the groves per inch on the record, but at a cost in sound quality. If then more groves the longer time it will take the stylus to track the record. If the arm which it did in SM104 moved on more quickly than stylus on those compilation albums, you got jumps and a scratched record. It was only used on that one system, and there don't seem to be many of them about these days.
When you see whats inside that system (above) it was pretty cheap and nasty.
To be fair they weren't the worst. The plastic belt driven BSR record deck was the biggest let down of them. Amstrad wasn't the only manufacturer that used them either. Binatone, Alba, even Hitachi used them in their budget systems. The cassette mech was good solid, all metal parts unit. Mine went quite loud with the tall speakers, certainly remember blasting out some KLF and other rave tunes on it. The worst hifi for quality was the ones made by Sentra. I think they was made in Korea. They had an all plastic cassette mech that if you looked at it funny it broke. It was that crap.
When you see whats inside that system (above) it was pretty cheap and nasty.
To be fair they weren't the worst. The plastic belt driven BSR record deck was the biggest let down of them. Amstrad wasn't the only manufacturer that used them either. Binatone, Alba, even Hitachi used them in their budget systems. The cassette mech was good solid, all metal parts unit. Mine went quite loud with the tall speakers, certainly remember blasting out some KLF and other rave tunes on it. The worst hifi for quality was the ones made by Sentra. I think they was made in Korea. They had an all plastic cassette mech that if you looked at it funny it broke. It was that crap.
Ok well, I've maybe been a bit harsh on it. You're comment is more balanced.
While I like the drawer based turntable, spending money on that feature may have taken away from giving the end-user a better turntable. In the end you get what you pay for. If something has lots of bells and whistles, and flashing LEDs, that will likely mean they'll have spent less on some other part.
Ok, so based on the comments in this thread, AMSTRAD products were not all crap. Some were maybe quite decent, others fair-to-middleing.
For the most part they were reasonably well made. They were definitely all built to a cost specification though and Amstrad weren't above using cheaper parts that got the job done. Reasonable products for the masses was always the goal and they mostly succeeded at that.
The Amstrad CPC464 was a fine machine, loved it almost as much as my Speccy.
Did you get a bit of sick in your mouth when you typed that?
Nope, it's a wonderful machine to code on (and for). It had development tools I wish the Speccy had, like external ROMS that held assembler and code editors.
Nope, it's a wonderful machine to code on (and for). It had development tools I wish the Speccy had, like external ROMS that held assembler and code editors.
Yup. Protext + MAXAM on ROM with a disk drive was pretty much the ultimate dev environment you could ask for on any 8-bit hardware. There's a reason it was a firm favourite for Z80 development before PCs running PDS took over.
Nope, it's a wonderful machine to code on (and for). It had development tools I wish the Speccy had, like external ROMS that held assembler and code editors.
Yup. Protext + MAXAM on ROM with a disk drive was pretty much the ultimate dev environment you could ask for on any 8-bit hardware. There's a reason it was a firm favourite for Z80 development before PCs running PDS took over.
Still got my Protext & MAXAM on ROM, suspect it would still work today if I fired it up.
Comments
https://youtu.be/HJbnax998Gw?si=7LZbIbxHwKsFcXDV
I got it in the early 90s. It had a couple of issues. I had to replace one of the pressure rollers on the recording cassette deck. I actually got the replacement from a spare Commode C2N datacorder as it used the same mechanism. The record deck which was the biggest let down needed a new belt and stylus got both from my local Tandy. The deck was a very cheap plastic BSR belt driven unit, with a Tetrad ceramic pick up cartridge. I remember the stylus model was T30 MD. They cost £1.49 for a new replacement back then, and £4 for the belt.
I've repaired a few Amstrad systems in the past, including the SM104 with the vertical linear tracking turntable that Vampyre posted. That turntable in those was derived from the same cheap plastic BSR mech, same ceramic pick up, and not a true linear tracking arm. Basically for every 2 rotations of the platter, the tone arm moved slightly. It didn't know if it was ready to or not, and sometimes the stylus would get dragged across a grove or two, because the stylus didn't keep up with the arm. Think of a K-Tel compilation LP which had about 12 songs a side on. These had to be cleverly engineered to fit all those songs on one side. This was done by increasing the groves per inch on the record, but at a cost in sound quality. If then more groves the longer time it will take the stylus to track the record. If the arm which it did in SM104 moved on more quickly than stylus on those compilation albums, you got jumps and a scratched record. It was only used on that one system, and there don't seem to be many of them about these days.
To be fair they weren't the worst. The plastic belt driven BSR record deck was the biggest let down of them. Amstrad wasn't the only manufacturer that used them either. Binatone, Alba, even Hitachi used them in their budget systems. The cassette mech was good solid, all metal parts unit. Mine went quite loud with the tall speakers, certainly remember blasting out some KLF and other rave tunes on it. The worst hifi for quality was the ones made by Sentra. I think they was made in Korea. They had an all plastic cassette mech that if you looked at it funny it broke. It was that crap.
SENTRA was that Dixons own Brand?
Ok well, I've maybe been a bit harsh on it. You're comment is more balanced.
While I like the drawer based turntable, spending money on that feature may have taken away from giving the end-user a better turntable. In the end you get what you pay for. If something has lots of bells and whistles, and flashing LEDs, that will likely mean they'll have spent less on some other part.
@luny@mstdn.games
https://www.luny.co.uk
I actually had one of those I quite liked it, but yeah it wasn’t really that great now that I think back.
Was that the one with the barcode reader? We had one of them.
No, I think the 4600 was the first model they released. It was fairly basic, with LP and a 4 memory timer.
@luny@mstdn.games
https://www.luny.co.uk
They probably were not that bad really for the price.
How long did it last?