A strange Revox A77

An A77 with MkIII pushbuttons and speed selector and MkIV knobs

Serial number dates it as a late Made in Germany MkIV machine

XLRs means that this machine was thought for professional use

Dear friends, I have recently found that I own a Revox A77 that is quite unusual in its configuration, or so it seems to me. It is one of many professional and semipro machines that I have collected over the years (many of them just to save them from the dump) Sadly, some of them were heavily damaged during the disastrous floods that plagued my region in May, 2023. This one, ironically, was saved due to the fact that I didn’t put among the more precious items in the ‘protected’ lock-up (the one that was flooded.) Last week, while trying to rescue something among the flooded equipment, among the Studers and Telefunkens and PR99s I found this A77. Clearly, I don't remember at all how I got it among other equipment, but at first I thought it was a sort of low-speed monophonic Revox so I put it in a corner; when I was forced to move it, I realized that it is at least an unusual machine. It looks like an early A77 MkIII (just see the pushbuttons in grey plastic) but the rotating knobs in front are of a MkIV; it is a ‘normal’ A77 until you see the XLRs on the top; and having inbuilt speakers it’s clearly used as a ‘portable’ tape recorder, though ‘portable’ is debatable considering its wight (18+ kgs.) Again, the serial number is ‘G277262’, so apparently a late German-built machine as this serial number is pertaining to the ‘MkIV’ series. All this is quite baffling to me. It looks like a Frankenstein machine built from a mismatched box of parts, but the broadcast corporation that used it was one of the best in the world, and at the time they didn’t shortcuts anywhere, surely not on R-T-R equipment. I really don't know what this Revox is, and I’m not planning to use it now, I have plenty other machines and I decide to spend some time on one of these splendid machines (I love and collect Studers), I have a only partially-submerged PR99 that seems to look at me every time I visit my ‘deposit, begging ‘restore me’. But, just out of curiosity I would like to hear your erudite opinion about that A77. Thanks for your interest and have a nice time, Stefano