Webster-Chicago Model 80

The full story of how I came by this machine is on the Brush BK-401 Soundmirror page. It was quite the find, especially considering that I really got it as an extra with 2 reel-to-reels and about 200 reels of paper-backed tapes. It is in excellent condition, came with 3 spools of wire, and it is functional. However, it has a pretty bad 60-cycle hum so it does need some work, likely the replacement of all the capacitors in the power supply section, a job for another day but one that I do intend to do since I want to capture what is on those spools.





This is a partial playback of the spool that was on the machine when I acquired it. It is a phone conversation about the upcoming holidays. You can hear the 60-cycle hum quite clearly. About 15 seconds into the recording I used a filter reduce some of it. My guess is that the recording is from the early 1940s as the previous owner mentioned that her husband used to record telephone conversations with it and that he had this machine prior to World War II.


Click on an image to enlarge it.

Updated December 2020.