About the Company
Saturn was a brand name used on a small number of consumer reel-to-reel tape recorders, mostly portable or home units dating from roughly the 1960s–1970s era. These machines were manufactured in Japan and sold under the Saturn label, but the brand doesn’t represent a major, long-running tape recorder manufacturer on the scale of Akai, Sony or Revox.
Brand: Saturn
Country of Manufacture: Japan
Market: Consumer / portable / home audio
Technology: Solid-state transistor electronics
Typical Format: Small portable open-reel decks
Documented Models: Saturn 2a and other portable variants
Because the brand is rare and not widely documented, most of what’s known comes from equipment collector directories and surviving units rather than corporate history archives.
Known Saturn Tape Recorder — Model 2a
Saturn 2a
Category: Portable reel-to-reel recorder
Electronics: Solid-state (transistorized)
Track/Heads: Stereo playback head only (no high-fidelity record head)
Reel Size: Designed for small portable reels (~3″) — far smaller than typical 7″ home decks
Tape Speed: Single very fast speed (unspecified) — not standard consumer speeds like 3¾ ips
Features: Basic transport with built-in speaker, compact case, very limited recording functionality
The Saturn 2a and similar units are very modest portable recorders, not full-featured hi-fi decks, and today they are primarily curiosities for vintage portable audio collectors.
Historical & Market Context
Japanese OEM Branding
Like many minor labels of the 1960s and early 1970s, Saturn is believed to have been a brand applied to Japanese-made portable transport mechanisms and electronics manufactured by an OEM — the same basic hardware sold under many small names if a dealer or distributor ordered a batch. This was a common practice for low-volume brands in that era.
Because Saturn doesn’t have an established corporate identity beyond these branded units, there’s no evidence it operated its own factory or engineering department dedicated to tape recorder production. Instead, the brand likely represented rebranded portable recorders made by generic Japanese manufacturers.
Legacy & Rarity
Extremely limited output: Only a handful of Saturn reel-to-reel models appear in vintage equipment databases, and most are small, low-fidelity portables rather than full desktop decks.
Collector interest: These machines are rare today and of interest mostly to collectors of quirky or obscure reel recorders rather than mainstream hi-fi enthusiasts.
Short-lived presence: Saturn faded from view as portable cassette and larger home reel formats dominated the late 1970s consumer audio landscape — a common fate for minor reel-to-reel brands.