About the Company
Orbita (Cyrillic Орбита) was a brand of consumer reel-to-reel tape recorders manufactured in the Soviet Union and later Russia. These machines were part of the domestic audio electronics industry that produced analogue tape decks for home use, roughly from the mid-1960s into the late 1980s / early 1990s.
Timeline & Production History
Origins — Mid-1960s
The Orbita brand appears to have been established around 1965 as part of the USSR’s efforts to manufacture consumer electronics, including magnetofony (reel-to-reel tape recorders).
These devices were made in Soviet industrial plants, often the Pyrometer Plant (Leningrad) and possibly other factories tasked with audio electronics production.
1970s — Growing Domestic Presence
Throughout the 1970s, Orbita became one of a number of Soviet reel-to-reel brands aimed at home recording and playback, alongside others like Astra, Kometa, and Rostov.
Models such as the Orbita-106 and Orbita-107 began appearing. These were fairly standard solid-state stereo machines with multiple speed settings.
1980s — More Refined Models
By the 1980s, Orbita recorders were recognizable consumer machines; examples include:
Orbita-106: A standard desktop stereo reel-to-reel deck (often dated circa 1984).
Orbita-107 / 107C: More advanced solid-state tape decks with stereo recording/playback, multiple tape speeds (e.g., 3¾ and 7½ ips), and three-head systems.
Late 1980s – Early 1990s — Industry Shift
As compact cassette decks and later digital formats (and then consumer hi-fi declined) became dominant, production of open-reel tape recorders like Orbita declined. By the early 1990s, Orbita and most Soviet-era reel brands had effectively ceased mainstream manufacture.