Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Panasonic RQ-84 Karaoke Songmate with cassettes and 8 tracks

In Value Village, Cornwall, Ontario, Dec 9, 2014

Looks like new! About the size of a stage amplifier. I've read that it dates to 1974, but it can't be that old, from looking at the paper label still attached to the front. It has two 8 tracks, one for play and one for rewind, and cassettes for recording so I guess the backing music was on the 8 tracks, surprisingly, since 8 tracks were being replaced by cassettes by the mid 70s. It has the original mike, and it appears to be unused! Karaoke bars didn't really become popular in Canada until the 1980s, so I wonder how this came to Canada. It has a CSA sticker on the back, which means it had been approved for sale in Canada, so maybe it was a demo item that had been sent here and was never used.







5 comments:

  1. Hi, these were introduced into Canada back in the early 1980s by Bobby Curtola. that is one of the original Songmates. I have another one. they were sold at Mr. Entertainment stores. Also they had Cassettes and 8 tracks both were recordable off of onto a cassette.

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  2. Thanks Connie, I didn't know any of that!

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  3. Replies
    1. It's not available at Value Village anymore, sorry!

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  4. I came across one just like it wow

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