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Vintage audio pricing

Tony L

Administrator
Interesting to see what the cost of certain items were back in their day, so worthy of a thread.

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I’ll start off with a shop ad taken from the back of the September 1968 copy of Gramophone. Some things really stand out, e.g. just how extraordinarily expensive say a Shure V15 cartridge is compared to some real heavyweight engineering such as a Garrard 401, Thorens TD-124 or a 12” Monitor Gold. Just it costing over a third more than a SME 3012 is surprising. It is fascinating looking back and seeing what are now indisputable classics and appreciating assets and what has fallen by the wayside and where they started from. I’ve got a lot of old mags from the late-50s so I’ll post a few examples up over the next week or two. If anyone is wondering what a Marantz SLT 12 is here’s a video!

PS I’ve no idea if the speaker pricing is pairs or singles.
 
Interesting to see the Jap amps so much more expensive than their now classic Brit counterparts.
 
I do remember in about 1971-2 going round to someones house and being told in no uncertain terms DO NOT TOUCH DAD'S TURNTABLE; apparently the cartridge cost well over £30 and I think it was a Shure. It seemed an astronomical sum to me at the time as I had just bought my first system for about £100 (Pioneer amp/Wharfdale speakers/SP25 deck with a cheap Shure cartridge).
 
I bought my Spendor BC1s in 1976. I paid £199, which included a discount.
I paid cash.
Do Forum members remember cash ?

Like you, I bought some Celef Domestic Monitors in 1976 for £80 cash. I could only dream of Spendor BC1's. Cash is king!
 
I bought my first system (Goldring Lenco GL75, M75EJ, Quad 33/303, JR149 and a Hitachi D550 cassette deck) second hand as a job-lot in 1978 for £350 IIRC.
 
So a Garrard 401 was just twice the price of an SP25, I didn't expect that - even taking into account you'd need an arm and plinth for the 401 to make them comparable. A used SP25 Mk II was my first 'proper' turntable in 1975.

Now where did I put that time machine.
 
By the time you’d stuck a SME or Ortofon arm on it, bought a appropriate cart and plonked it into a nice plinth it was quite a lot dearer!

PS As I understand it the 301 and 401 were subsidided loss-leaders to promote the brand, which may explain why they were always a good bit cheaper than the TD-124.
 
By the time you’d stuck a SME or Ortofon arm on it, bought a appropriate cart and plonked it into a nice plinth it was quite a lot dearer!

I can't remember what the plinth and arm cost and can't check my copies of old HiFi News at the moment. It seems astonishing these days that in the 70s Comet used to sell all of those. Comet also used to sell LPs, I bought a few from my local store.
 
Some of the prices are amazing. I ended up with an LP12 in 1980, which was great, and prior to that had a TD160. But I kind of wish I'd gone down the Garrard route. Mind you I could do that in the future ...

Jack
 
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Some of the prices are amazing. I ended up with an LP12 in 1980, which was great, and prior to that had a TD160. But I kind of wish I'd done down the Garrard route. Mind you I could do that in the future ...

A friend of mine got an LP12 in the 70s because the Rega he'd ordered from a shop in Oxford was heavily back ordered, so they gave him a used LP12 - with I think SME arm - for the same price.
 
A friend of mine got an LP12 in the 70s because the Rega he'd ordered from a shop in Oxford was heavily back ordered, so they gave him a used LP12 - with I think SME arm - for the same price.

Oddly enough the LP12 I bought was from a shop in Oxford.

Jack
 


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