The Prefer KC-4000: a very unusual cassette player.

Have you ever seen it? If not, I made a video for you:

I first met the Prefer brand when I started using the electret condenser microphone Prefer UCM-0818 in the museum studio. I was impressed with the sound quality. Today I would like to introduce a very unusual boombox, Prefer KC-4000, that arrived at the museum collection.



Firstly, the Prefer is a Belgium brand of Ummels B.V.B.A., founded by J.A.M. Ummels in 1964 in Geelen near Maastricht (Netherlands) as a sales audio and video equipment company. In 1974, the Prefer brand was introduced to the market to represent microphones, mixers, and other audio and video products made in different OEM production lines in Japan.

As you can see, this portable cassette player is equipped with a Slot-In tape drive mechanism, the same as a car radio. The main advantage is that it is easy to operate - all you need is to insert the cassette inside. The cassette mechanism of Prefer KC-4000 was made in Japan by Tanashin Denki under the license of Staar S.A. (Brussels, Belgium).

Internal acoustic boxes can be folded up to the top, and you will have a nice handle to carry the device - by the way, it is quite heavy for its size.

Every box has two speakers - bass and middle/treble. If you running out of batteries, you can switch off the bass speakers to reduce the power consumption and increase the battery's life. You can power this stereo cassette player the 12 volts from a car or boat, or 220 volts at home.

The device is equipped with AM and FM radio. The telescopic antenna hides deep inside when the device is out of use.

You can connect 2 external microphones, and mix them with the sound from the cassette or radio, like a karaoke. An external stereo powerful amplifier can be connected via aux output.

This unusual Prefer KC-4000 portable AM/FM/ Stereo Cassette Tape Player was made in Japan, especially for the Prefer brand in 1977.

 

Wasn't there a Toshiba ? which did the same trick with the loudspeakers ?
Of course the features missing from such a simple cassette mechanism are Record and Rewind.
In 1982 I bought a Motorola car cassette player with a similar mechanism, its main attraction being low price.

 

Yep. A few months ago it drew my attention on Jahoo JP but under
JOYSEVEN brand.
I even thought about maybe placing a bid. A really nice looking machine I liked it.

Thanks for the video!