About the Company
Terta was a Hungarian brand of reel‑to‑reel tape recorders that produced a small line of consumer audio machines between approximately 1958 and 1963. The recorders were manufactured in Hungary and targeted at the home audio market, competing with other European consumer decks of the era. Terta machines typically used tube‑based (valve) electronics, reflecting the common design approach of late‑1950s consumer recorders before transistorization became widespread. Their production period was relatively brief and focused on basic consumer machines rather than professional or high‑fidelity studio decks.
One of the earliest recorded models is the Terta 811, manufactured from about 1958 to 1961. This machine was a half‑track mono recorder, featuring tube electronics, a single tape speed of 3¾ inches per second, and accommodation of 7‑inch reels. It had two heads and permalloy head material typical of the era’s consumer decks. The Terta 811 was notable as one of the first tape recorders manufactured behind the Iron Curtain to be shown internationally, being exhibited in Britain in 1959.
A later machine in the Terta lineup was the Terta 922, produced from around 1960 to 1963. The 922 was a slightly more advanced consumer tape deck compared with the earlier model, offering two tape speeds (1 7/8 and 3¾ ips) and retaining tube electronics. It featured a full‑track mono configuration and added an EM84 “magic eye” recording level indicator, a visual tuning aid appreciated by hobbyists. The 922’s circuitry included tubes such as ECC83 and ECL82 along with additional components, and it won an aesthetics award for its appearance.
Both Terta models were designed primarily for everyday home recording and playback, with features suitable for capturing radio broadcasts or personal recordings rather than meeting professional broadcast or high‑fidelity studio standards. Their frequency response and performance were modest by later standards, reflecting their consumer‑oriented positioning.
Terta’s presence in the market appears to have ended after about 1963, coinciding with the broader industry transition toward solid‑state transistor electronics and increasing competition from Japanese manufacturers that dominated the global consumer reel‑to‑reel segment thereafter. Because its output was modest and limited to a couple of models, Terta remains a relatively obscure part of reel‑to‑reel history, known mainly through collector references and examples preserved by vintage audio enthusiasts.
In summary, Terta was a Hungarian consumer reel‑to‑reel brand active from about 1958 to 1963, producing tube‑based portable decks such as the 811 and 922 models that served home recording needs in the early era of magnetic tape audio. Its machines reflect the transitional period of consumer reel‑to‑reel technology before solid‑state designs became dominant and before Japanese brands fully supplanted many smaller European makers.