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The Philips EL 3300 is the machine that started the compact cassette era: the first recorder built around Lou Ottens' cassette, developed at Philips in Hasselt, Belgium, and launched in 1963. It is a mono, battery-powered portable recorder with a built-in microphone and a single VU meter, made of metal and plastic in a briefcase-style case. It suits collectors, tape historians and anyone who wants the origin piece of the cassette format. Against later cassette decks it is crude: mono only, no Dolby, no auto-stop, and it plays only the original Philips-style cassette shell it was designed for.
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Owners and collectors treat the EL 3300 as a landmark rather than a daily recorder. They value its place in cassette history and its sturdy 1960s construction, while noting that working examples need servicing and that its sound is mono and limited.
The Philips EL 3300 is the first compact cassette recorder, also called a pocket recorder. It was developed in the Philips factory in Hasselt, Belgium.
Lou Ottens led the development team in Belgium. J.J.M. Schoenmakers and Peter van der Sluis also worked on it. Their work covered the EL 1903 cassette, the mechanism and the EL 3300 recorder.