[ARSCLIST] Expense of home recording prior to advent of tape

[Rob Bamberger <RBAMBERGER@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Can anyone provide info on what sort of prices early home recordists had to spend on machines and recording blanks targeted to "ordinary" people? I've no sense of the range in quality among available recorders, though I imagine that prices for blanks varied based on the size of the discs and the material used at the disc's core.

Did manufacturers of the disc recorders keep the prices for the recorder itself on the low side because they counted on making their profits more on blanks (in the manner of razors and replacement blades)? Were, in fact, any discs proprietary to the machines themselves?