Old record players

[absinthe_boy]

When I was 2 or 3 in 1975/6, my dad tried to teach me to play records on his pretty decent stereo record player. I was too ham fisted to really be able to do it, and one Sunday morning I crept downstairs to have another go and ended up scratching a lot of his records

But rather than punish me, my parents bought me a 1960 ish vanity case record player, and I was permitted to go get one second hand 45 every week from the local record shop (which I am delighted to report is still going strong in 2025). After maybe three years that record player broke and I was given another 60s record player. this one a bit more conventionally styled for the time but not a genuine Dansette. I think it may have been an ECKO.

Sometime in the early 80s my mother found that her original Dansette Major was still alive and well in her mother's house and she gave that to me, instructing me to give mine to a friend. Sadly my old record player ended up in a shed, never used and skipped in the 90s. But I still have mum's Dansette and it still works. It's looking a bit shabby as she insisted on keeping it in a shed when I left home. But it's totally restorable.

Dad eventually upgraded his stereo record player in 1980 and after a while passed it onto me. By this time the cat had chewed one of the loudspeaker cables and fried the left channel of the amp. Despite the best efforts of an electrical engineer the internal amp never worked after that so he bought me a Realistic micro stereo amp from Tandy to use with it. The record player was a Medley Music Stereo System, based around a Garrard 2025 deck and was pretty decent for it's late 60s manufacturing date. Late 80s it started slowing down and I got a cheap turntable from Tandy before buying a really good Systemdek turntable in 1991...which is still the centerpiece of my stereo system today.

Anyway...the Medley record player went up into the loft for 25 years before I found myself at my mum's house for a weekend and decided to get it down and see if I could get it to work. Turns out the induction motor needed stripping, cleaning and putting back....and voila....it still needs an amp but it's working fine as a turntbale. I entrusted it to my closest friend, and it's now pride of place in her living room with full autochange functioning perfectly.

The cheap Tandy turntable which replaced it is now my "office turntable" with that Realistic micro amp still doing it's job for both the turntable and my office PC. The Dansette is better preserved so as not to become more damaged and the Systemdek seems indestructable.

So....yeah....I still have nearly every record player/turntable which has been through my hands. All still in frequently apart from the Dansette which I am hoping to have restored before bringing it back into use in a bedroom.

[beccabear67]

I remember an older Dansette type player with a heavy turntable on it, the whole thing looked very '50s including the metal play arm, but it did play LPs. It had one speaker (mono) but you could detach it from the player box and set it away from that as far as the wire to it went. It looked like a piece of luggage when all closed up and had a handle.

[andrec]

Yep, it was rather a bind to have to completely remove the lid every time you wanted to use it. The Waltham made more sense in that it was hinged, although being plastic you had to be careful in case it cracked.

[beccabear67]

Around 1976 my parents bought one with a smoked-plastic lid that you had to take off completely - no hinge - to access the deck. It had two wired speakers and was perhaps a Fidelity, but not sure.

We had one with a no-hinges cover like that, kind of an annoyance.

[andrec]

The earliest record player I can remember was one covered in a red material with a lid that was lifted up to get to the record deck. Can't remember the brand, but it would have been from the 50s to early 60s.

Around 1976 my parents bought one with a smoked-plastic lid that you had to take off completely - no hinge - to access the deck. It had two wired speakers and was perhaps a Fidelity, but not sure.

In 1979 or 1980 I bought a Waltham music centre from Woolies, with record deck, cassette deck and radio. Again, this one had a smoked-plastic lid, but this time hinged.

Finally, for my 21st birthday, my parents bought me an Amstrad tower hi-fi unit, again from Woolies. I can't recall if it had a single or twin cassette deck - I think twin - and there were lights that came on and went from green to red as the volume was cranked up. I've heard these units are rather notorious for their poor sound quality, but I must say that I got a lot of enjoyment out of it, and it was still going strong 20 years later.

[Cartimand]

I can recall an ancient valve-powered radiogram in my parent's living room that took ages to power on.
Then, sometime in the 70s, my mum won a Bang and Olufsson Beocenter music system in some competition.
Whilst the audio quality was impressive, it did seem horribly over-engineered, with touch-sensitive controls that only occasionally worked and a weird lateral-tracking tone-arm, that I believed would damage records. They sold it a year or so later and bought a more conventional music centre that everyone was happy with.

[W1 Rover]

Sis was given a dansette off our teenage cousin when she left for Uni .She loved the stones but not the Beatles and she also supplied us with a good few singles from the mid to late 60s.
we sat and listened to the lot , A sides and B sides constantly. Sadly she passed away too young in the mid 80s but whenever I hear “cast your fate to the wind “ by Sounds Orchestral, I think of her.
it doesn’t sound right without the pops and crackles of a well played 7inch vinyl

That's a sad story.
Pops and crackles... evocative.

[Semi42]

Sis was given a dansette off our teenage cousin when she left for Uni .She loved the stones but not the Beatles and she also supplied us with a good few singles from the mid to late 60s.
we sat and listened to the lot , A sides and B sides constantly. Sadly she passed away too young in the mid 80s but whenever I hear “cast your fate to the wind “ by Sounds Orchestral, I think of her.
it doesn’t sound right without the pops and crackles of a well played 7inch vinyl

[W1 Rover]

And then of course we moved on. My parents bought a stereo, Elizabethan was the brand name I think. Two speakers (obviously) with a plastic tinted lid or dust cover. The switches had a kind of faux brushed aluminium finish to them and you could choose between a diamond or a lesser quality stylus depending on how flushed you were. The whole caboodle stood on a free standing unit in our front room...MFI of course

[tex]

My parents had a Fidelity record player, they originally bought it during the sixties and I loved it to bits. There was a grey plastic dial to the front left hand side within the cabinet to select the rpm, the lowest being 16 although I can't ever recall playing a record at that speed. When it was turned on you could see the dull orange glow of the valves through a vent. I used to enjoy stacking 45's on the spindle and watching them drop on to the turntable one by one. Some of the discs had a large hole in the centre in which you'd have to insert a black spider to play. All very hands on stuff....makes cd's seem boring by comparison

The ones with the large hole were ex juke box , i remember them well....pop ex

[W1 Rover]

My parents had a Fidelity record player, they originally bought it during the sixties and I loved it to bits. There was a grey plastic dial to the front left hand side within the cabinet to select the rpm, the lowest being 16 although I can't ever recall playing a record at that speed. When it was turned on you could see the dull orange glow of the valves through a vent. I used to enjoy stacking 45's on the spindle and watching them drop on to the turntable one by one. Some of the discs had a large hole in the centre in which you'd have to insert a black spider to play. All very hands on stuff....makes cd's seem boring by comparison

[tex]

Re: Old record players

Dansett, had to put a 2p on the arm to stop skipping

[battyrat]

Re: Old record players

The earliest record player in the house I can remember was an old valve radiogram made of solid wood,and had that lovely warm smell when it was warming up.The wooden top lifted up and it had quite a heavy looking bulky arm to the record player.

My first record player was a portable mono Philips in some sort of red material covering.Would of been quite old even when I had it.Worked very well for years.

[onthebusesfan]

Re: Old record players

I Have 4 Different Record Players in my house.

the 1st one i have is my dad's record player and a tapedeck/hi fi christ remember those to.

thats over 30yrs old and still going strong till this very day. Technics

The Second One Is An Old Style One With the wood look i picked that up at an auction room about 5yrs ago for about a tenner , and that plays the real old records 78's up to the lps.

And The Last Two I Own Are Made By Numark which are about 4-5 yrs old now, but unfortunately one of them don't work now ,well it sort of does but the sound goes really low and then sometimes loud then back to low again, so i haven't got a scooby whats gone wrong there.

[Zincubus]

Re: Old record players

Loved T rex, Hot love was the first single i bought

It was my second !!
I bought Elvis’s ballad The Wonder of You first ..

I actually became obsessed with TRex soon after buying every single on the day it was released ( 50p each ) and even before ever hearing them !!

I also bought all their albums and even the Tyrannosaurus Rex albums !!


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