Neal Ferrograph
Posted by: John Bailey on 25 March 2003
I was just wondering if anybody knew anything about the cassette decks this company manufactured in the late 70's early 80's.
Is anyone still using them or knows where to get them serviced.
John.
Is anyone still using them or knows where to get them serviced.
John.
Many thanks for the replies, most interesting.
I was born and brought up just outside Tyneside, I was 12 years old when the factory closed in 1981 and the local BBC news did an article on it which continues to stick in my mind along with the unemployment that blighted the people of that area at the time.
Anyway, a combination of Geordie Pride and Hifi lunacy made me search out one of these machines and I recently acquired (at low cost) a Model 302. Apart from the odd mark on the side of the case it's in almost mint condition - very clean.
It is still possible to have them repaired and serviced I have since found - the original UK distributor is still going and mine is going in for a service on Saturday. Spent a good 20 minutes on the phone to him, a real enthusiast who condsiders these machines to be 'old friends'.
Build is battleship quality - quite unlike anything I have seen on a cassette deck and more like a piece of lab equipment, in fact a lab is where mine spent most of it's life.
I have been looking for a small project to learn how to make a web site so will be doing one based on the Neal. If anybody has any information that they could let me have for scanning in or send electronically then I would be very grateful.
One thread I did locate on the Naim forum indicated that JV was very keen on them. The note about the mechanism being made by Papst is most interesting as if you open up the 302 all the (3) motors are made by this company. My understanding is that almost all the mechanical parts for the deck were manufactured at Simonside but I wonder if the the Naim deck was going to be based on the Neal mech... any comments Naim?
For those that need to know what a late model Neal (in this case an AV version Model 330) looks like then I found this on the web:
[This message was edited by John Bailey on THURSDAY 03 April 2003 at 20:45.]
I was born and brought up just outside Tyneside, I was 12 years old when the factory closed in 1981 and the local BBC news did an article on it which continues to stick in my mind along with the unemployment that blighted the people of that area at the time.
Anyway, a combination of Geordie Pride and Hifi lunacy made me search out one of these machines and I recently acquired (at low cost) a Model 302. Apart from the odd mark on the side of the case it's in almost mint condition - very clean.
It is still possible to have them repaired and serviced I have since found - the original UK distributor is still going and mine is going in for a service on Saturday. Spent a good 20 minutes on the phone to him, a real enthusiast who condsiders these machines to be 'old friends'.
Build is battleship quality - quite unlike anything I have seen on a cassette deck and more like a piece of lab equipment, in fact a lab is where mine spent most of it's life.
I have been looking for a small project to learn how to make a web site so will be doing one based on the Neal. If anybody has any information that they could let me have for scanning in or send electronically then I would be very grateful.
One thread I did locate on the Naim forum indicated that JV was very keen on them. The note about the mechanism being made by Papst is most interesting as if you open up the 302 all the (3) motors are made by this company. My understanding is that almost all the mechanical parts for the deck were manufactured at Simonside but I wonder if the the Naim deck was going to be based on the Neal mech... any comments Naim?
For those that need to know what a late model Neal (in this case an AV version Model 330) looks like then I found this on the web:
[This message was edited by John Bailey on THURSDAY 03 April 2003 at 20:45.]