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My first record player was...

Michael J

pfm Member
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An Elizabethan portable. Originally mono (but with two speakers, oh yes), it had been converted to stereo by my grandfather (an electrical engineer) by the addition of a transistor or two and some nifty rewiring somehow. I hung the speakers from hooks on the wall of my bedroom and played my first record.

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http://mahawa.jw-music.net/compilations/space odyssey.htm

I still have that record.

I was 12 or 13 years old. It was awesome. :)
 
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A Bush RG71 given to me by my grandparents when they "upgraded" to a music centre in the mid 1970s. I have fond memories of that thing, it sounded pretty decent with a tube amp and 2x 8" Celestion speakers, I had another vintage speaker hooked up to it across the other side of the room too - all in mono. The big clunky Garrard autochanger was not too kind to records though, I wore a good few T. Rex, Hawkwind etc albums out on that thing. I used to enjoy listening to Peel, Alan Freeman etc on it too.

Tony.
 
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Its also one of my very earliest memories in life playing with this fisher price tt. I still get the same vague yet resolutely unchanging feeling/notion of expectancy putting on a record on my Lp12 as I did with this record player aged Im not sure maybe 4 or 5 yrs old Id have thought.
 
I had a few portable box case players as a kid then a radiogramme.

When I was about 13 I bought a Garrad SP25 (MK IV I think) from Laskys and was very proud.

It has gone on from there......
 
Nasty wee plastic dual cs505. No spotty youth it seems was ever allowed to leave a dealers without one. Then got an old lp12 with sme 3009 and it was one of the happiest purchases of my life
 
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Its also one of my very earliest memories in life playing with this fisher price tt. I still get the same vague yet resolutely unchanging feeling/notion of expectancy putting on a record on my Lp12 as I did with this record player aged Im not sure maybe 4 or 5 yrs old Id have thought.

Which one sounded better?
 
The dreaded Dansette complete with a 1p stuck on the arm for more uumm .......vinyl swarf?:D I do remember listening to Steve Hillage's Green album and hearing an effect like holophonics but in glorious mono. Or maybe I just hadn't gotten used to the drugs.
 
This was the very first.
A Marx Toys record player. Ran on a couple of HP2s and used a steel needle and foil diaphram.
I used to regularly break them and we had several in different colour combinations. Grandfather used to fix them using the foil tops from Ski Yogurt pots :)

I still have one today:

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I suppose the first thing that could really be called a turntable was a BSR autochanger with ceramic cartridge. Had one as a kid and used it with a Teleton 202 amp (still have one) into some speakers again built by Grandfather using elliptical TV set speakers:

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This el-cheapo, plastic Akai AP-A2:

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Here's my old Nait 1, Akai AP-A2, Rogers Studio 3 setup in a small bedroom, some years ago.

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I too still have a similar 'Bush' handed down to me like yours, except mine has two doors, very similar push buttons, if not the same.
I will take a photo of it and post, I guess its certainly at least 40 years old if its a day.My first turntable was Pioneer PL12d while at school, went around a friends house who had the PL12 driving Celestion 66's, was a knock out sound back in the day.
 
My first ever record player was and early electric 78 only thing - I think HMV - It had changeable needles a bit like the earlier horn loaded machines but these needles had sapphire tips. It had to be connected to the radio to hear it though. Built like a tank! First fully integrated record player was a Dansette lookalike with a very early BSR record wrecker - hummed like a powerstation and pretty distorted sound.
 
A Fidelity HF something-or-other something like this

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I don't remember which model, but it was definitely orange and not exactly hi-fi. Played a lot of records on it though.

I should have kept it - they seem to go for quite a lot on eBay these days!
 


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