Elac CD 520 Cassette Deck

This Elac CD 520 is a stereo cassette deck with Dolby B and DNL noise reduction, it was first sold by Elac in 1975 and discontinued 2 years later in 1977.

The main features of the Elac CD 520 cassette deck are: 2 heads, mechanical 3 digit tape counter, automatic tape type selection and capable of handling normal and chrome tapes, belt driven single-capstan transport.

Typical of this deck is the 70's top loading layout with the cassette compartiment located on the center of the deck. Tape eject is operated mechanically and the cassette needs to be placed with the side to be played facing forward in the cassette well.

Level meters used on the Elac CD 520 cassette deck are analog needle VU reading meters with multi-color indication to provide visual saturation level of tape. Mechanical transport controls for reliable Elac CD 520 transport function selection.

The Dolby-B system reduces tape hiss on tapes recorded on the Elac CD 520 by as much as 10 dB at the highest frequencies. Unlike the various Dolby systems, which require encoding and decoding, the Dynamic noise limiter (DNL) used by Elac in the CD 520 works on playback only and reduces noise by as much as 10 dB.

To make live recordings this deck has 2 microphone inputs to connect a microphone with a DIN connector. For undisturbed listening a DIN connector for a pair of stereo headphones is supplied. Connection to other audio components for plaback can be achieved by a RCA cable and recording from a source by a RCA cable.