Record Players – Gramophones

supplied by A Quarter Of Facebook page via John Austin

Redstar Richter… mine was older than that!

Alan Esdaile… I had one like this and the same colour but I remember we did have an old 78 wind up before this.

Will Cornell… When LPs started to be pressed on the more flexible (and therefore warp-able) vinyl, yet still play decently, I stopped stacking them and played them one by one, forever after. They’d spin in place if stacked. That might’ve been the reason most turntables after 1970 or so were single play version and the stacking mechanisms faded.

Pete Shaw…  I’ve got a Dansette Bermuda in Blue and Vanilla….my mum bought it for me in about 1963/64…first record I bought was “She Loves You” by The Beatles…..those singles had a rippled groove so when stacked they’d grip each other on the turntable!!

Yvonne Cleland… My father had one of these. He used to play Dave Brubeck and Stan Kenton on it!

Mick Mepham… … and won 2 – 0 …..

Pete Fairless… I haven’t bought anything new in ages. I know it’s tempting fate to say it but the Sony system I bought (and, actually, I bought it for Amanda) when we moved here over ten years ago is still as good as ever!

Nigel Ford… DANSETTE Tempo still in the roof with my mod of a mini-jack socket so I could record direct off it!…. oh and a stereo compatible cartridge of course!! See ya tomorrow…

John Storer… We went several formative years without a record player at home. Had one in my pre-teen years for playing Mum & Dad’s old 78s but then that gave up the ghost. My Dad worked at ITT so pretty much everything electrical we had in the house was ITT branded. However, no record player appeared until my sister and I forced his hand by starting spending our pocket money on singles and then moaning we had nothing to play them on.The first single I bought myself was “Vehicle” by The Ides of March (Canadian jazz-rock band, sounding not unlike early Chicago). Anyway, the player my Dad brought home from work was pretty cool for its time. Looked not unlike the player pictured above, except that the front came away and there was another speaker behind. The front was connected by a cable about 6-7′ long. Move it away from the player and you had your actual, bona fide, stereo! It sounded great but the best stereo effect came when you laid down with your ear against the record player speaker and the extension speaker against your other ear. Remember borrowing “An Asylum For The Musically Insane” by Tea and Symphony (on the Harvest label) from one of the cool 5th Formers at the Grammar School and marveling at the stereo effects the album had. It also gave me something to listen to my Dad’s old jazz LPs and which gave me an enduring love of Glenn Miller (To this day, I still cry at the end of “The Glenn Miller Story” with James Stewart), Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Louis Armstrong A few years after that, Dad brought home a Hi-Fi system that had speakers you permanently fixed to the wall. My life was complete!

Alan Esdaile… Brilliant track Vehicle – Ides of march.

Will Cornell… Did ya’ll have anything in the 60s like HeathKits over there? HeathKit was an electronics company that sold radios, phonographs, ham/CB radios, I think they even had TVs, all in Kit form. They sent you the parts, all knocked down, circuit boards and all the transistors, capacitors, resistors, etc. Easy to follow instructions. My first record player was a little stereo with speakers flanking a turntable. You could fold the turntable up (and lock the tone arm of course) and carry it around like a suitcase. I think it’s time someone brought that idea back. Imagine a build it yourself smart phone….and you can add to it later instead of standing in line like a fool. If anything went wrong with it, you’d have a troubleshooting chart to fix it yourself. Heath’s name is still owned by someone, but the kits by and large disappeared in the 70s or so….RIP.

Patrick Lewis…Macho, especially that Great machine. This many and millions liberated.

Eric Cawthraw… I had one similar, but they did all look alike. I can’t remember the make of mine, but it was Czech and boy was it loud. My parents owned a Guest House half way up St. John’s Road and you could hear it down by Warrior Square station! What an embarrassing noisy sod I must have been [OK, still am – when no one is looking]. I never used the multi-disc spindle either. Mind you if you used it right and the disc started to slip, you could get something like Neu! out if it! Aah the joys of vari-speed [no, not a drug reference]. Like John Storer, I had – and still have ‘Vehicle’ by ’The Ides of March’. I think it’s on W. Bros label. Yep, checked and it is. I’ve also come across the Boxer/Crawler/Moon single. I must have bought it at the Pier gig, or soon thereafter.

Mick O’Dowd… Sometimes had to put a coin on the arm to stop discs slipping!