Grundig 1000 (1955–1957)

The Grundig 1000 was the company's flagship reel-to-reel recorder of the mid-1950s. In its home market it was advertised as "Der Meister unter den Tonbandgeräten" - the master among tape recorders. It's a 2-track mono machine running at 3¾ and 7½ ips on 7″ reels. A single AC induction motor drives everything through a mechanical idler wheel. The electronics are all tube: an EF83 preamp stage, an EL84 output tube and an EZ80 rectifier. A switch picks track one or track two for recording. The record head uses AC bias, and erasing is done by a permanent magnet instead of an erase-head circuit. Owners note that this quirk means you can't do a record/erase cycle while the tape is running unless the lever is set correctly.

The record is thin on formal performance data. No frequency response, signal-to-noise or wow-and-flutter figures survive in the usual directories. Owner reports are uniformly positive on sound quality. One collector on AudioKarma called it "a beast - beautifully built," with excellent wow and flutter for a 1955 deck. A German RadioMuseum reviewer described it as the best mono machine Grundig ever built, with superb recording quality. The internal amplifier drives a built-in 5×7″ elliptical speaker. There are DIN inputs for microphone and radio, plus a DIN preamp output for feeding an external amplifier. The cabinet is a metal chassis with wooden side panels and a removable wooden cover.

The usual 60-year-old German recorder problems apply. The pinch roller and idler wheel harden and crack, and a cracked idler will shatter if run. The transport grease turns to glue, and the electrolytics in the power supply dry out. The original permalloy head (part 362 462) is scarce but occasionally appears as NOS. The 1000 is often confused with the later TK 1000 of 1959, which is a completely different design. The only dimension figure that survives comes from a single 1956 German ad, giving 450×320×240 cm and a weight of 30 kg. The weight at least matches the "hauling that thing is a workout" owner complaint. Working, serviced examples have sold recently for around €480 - €750 in Germany. Untested units go for far less. A period review in Studio Sound (August 1968, p.37) noted contemporary Grundig recorders offered a frequency range of 40 Hz - 12 kHz and a signal-to-noise ratio of 50 dB.