ON THE INSIDE
 Both designs were great but the new one gave Beta a formidable weapon in its fight with VHS over quality, performance, reliability and size. The new design is illustrated below and VHS is shown on the right.  THE TWO DESIGNS:  They did this major overhaul while improving Betas performance, reliability and operation while at the same time maintaining complete compatibility with the older tape path. It was truly an engineering wonder. Overall space requirements, weight and component size was reduced by half. After the success of the SL-2300 and SL-2400 series in 1982 and 1983 Sony went on to feature more slim cabinet designs with more features and eventually ended up with models that were too smart and more clever than the general public could comprehend. But if you kept up and stayed with Beta until the last you had an exceptional journey. Note: first design Beta VCRs are no longer serviced by yours truly because they are too old to produce a reliable outcome. Members of the slimline family of Betas were the SL-2300, SL-2305, SL-2400, SL-2401, SL-2405, SL-2406, SL-2408C, SL-2410, SL-2415 and SL-2500. The slimline E-Z Betas were the: SL-10, SL-20, SL-25, |