Philips N7605 Car Cassette Player; Has Anyone Else Ever Seen One?

[Andrew353w]

Not sure if this ought to be in the "motoring" or the 'open" forum, bit I'll put it here nevertheless. Several years ago I found an item on E-Bay that I vaguely remembered from my childhood, when my Father sold all sorts of Philips electrical equipment in his shop. Among these was a device that allowed a small Philips cassette recorder to be connected to a car radio. This was well before the days of combined car radio/cassette players (and I appreciate there are some of our younger members who might not know what a "cassette" is...)  and  it permitted the player to draw power from the car's electrical system (one must select 6 or 12 volts, positive or negative earth first) and to play cassettes through the radio's amplifier. Philips called it a "N6705" and it connected to the car radio via a 240 degree 5-pin DIN plug. Apart from THIS electrical fossil (me!) has anyone else ever seen or used one? Here are some pictures of the operating instructions and the device fitted to my Daf:

 

It actually works! I've fed the "line" feed to the "aux input" on my DAB radio/CD player, thus giving me the option of playing sounds from any source I like. I have a huge amount of cassettes, including audiobooks, made well before "Audible" came along! 

 

[RayMK]

As a past owner of two Volvo 66s I could not fail to like a rare DAF post. Although I'm old enough to remember these devices, I can't recall ever seeing one. Many people tried to run their ordinary cassette recorders from the car's electrics, me included. The results were usually poor and only acceptable for layby background music. Engine noise easily drowned the typically <1watt cassette player.

[Mr Pastry]

6 minutes ago, Andrew353w said:

Apart from THIS electrical fossil (me!) has anyone else ever seen or used one?

I do remember these, though never had one.  I did though have an EL3302 recorder as pictured, and it certainly wasn't loud enough for use in a car on its own.

By coincidence, today I have been fitting a period-correct Philips radio/cassette to my 2CV.  It took me some time to find a cassette to test it.  IMO the Philips cassette system has a lot to answer for, but probably more good than bad on balance.

 

[Dead_E23]

I think my brother had a 'Harry Moss' cassette player that looked similar to that installed under the dash in his Hillman Imp, but it was completely independent of the radio. Sounded rubbish, but that was par for the course with Harry Moss gear.

When was this Philips player made?  The graphics look late 60s to me, so it presumably 'inspired' the Harry Moss one.

[Mr Pastry]

3 minutes ago, Dead_E23 said:

When was this Philips player made?  The graphics look late 60s to m

Google says 1969-72.

[Dead_E23]

Sounds about right then - I reckon he had the Imp sometime around 1975-6.

[Andrew353w]

8 minutes ago, Dead_E23 said:

When was this Philips player made?  The graphics look late 60s to me, so it presumably 'inspired' the Harry Moss one.

I think the Philips one would have been first, since the Philips company invented the compact cassette. The quality of these little cassette recorders is actually quite good, given their age. They have various outputs, both line and loudspeaker, so when used as a cassette deck and connected to the car radio amplifier the quality is comparable to a modern car radio/cassette player, although the output is mono, as opposed to stereo.

[Mr Pastry]

1 minute ago, Andrew353w said:

I think the Philips one would have been first,

Yes, Harry Moss I think were a bit later.  Was there a real Harry Moss?  There was an EMI recording engineer of that name at about the same time, but that may be coincidence and it's just a brand name, as few would have heard of him.   The Philips sound quality was good, and comparable to quite upmarket domestic reel-to-reels of the time, so they certainly started something.