Harman Kardon HK3500 Three Head Dual Motor Cassette Deck

The Harman Kardon HK3500 is a stereo cassette deck with Dolby B noise reduction, it was introduced by Harman Kardon in 1978 with a recommended retail price of USD $549 and discontinued 2 years later in 1980.

The main features of the Harman Kardon HK3500 are: 3 heads and no off-tape monitoring to save production cost, analog 3 digit tape counter, manual tape type selection with support for normal, chrome and ferro-chrome tapes with additional manual equalization selection, belt driven single-capstan transport.

Typical front loading cassette deck with the cassette compartiment located on the left side 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 HK3500 are analog needle VU reading meters. Mechanical transport controls for reliable HK3500 transport function selection. Playback speed may be adjusted with pitch control.

To ensure the best response from the wide variety of tapes available adjustment of, sensitivity, to optimum levels can be performed prior to recording.

The Dolby-B system reduces tape hiss on tapes recorded on the HK3500 by as much as 10 dB at the highest frequencies. A Subsonic filter is provided in the HK3500 to prevent infrasonic signals generated when playing a warped record. These signals can upset the Dolby system and prevening it from functioning properly.

To make live recordings this deck has 2 microphone inputs to connect microphones with a jack connector. For undisturbed listening a jack 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.