My first turntable was a Bush Dansette copy, circa 1970, with a 1 watt amplifier in glorious mono.
As a budding DJ, I had a twin deck console from about 1975, using Goldring Lenco turntables (which were about £10 cheaper than Garrard SP25s from Comet) but it was by no means a Hi-Fi.
When I moved to Coventry, I saved up my weekly wage to buy a music centre in a briefcase, made by Sanyo. It was Ok, but again, by no means a Hi-Fi. (I found a photo of one online, here).
I bought my first “proper” turntable in 1981, a Technics SL-10 from the Windows Music shop sale in Newcastle. It was slightly damaged (with a scratch on the top front edge) so was a little cheaper but otherwise OK. From memory, it was about £200 which sounds a lot of money for the time (and it was!) but this was genuine Hi-Fi, although purists (like my mate Leslie) poo-pooed it for more traditional lower-tech designs like the Linn Sondek LP12 (still being made and one sold for £2k on ebay recently).
My Technics was innovative in several ways. Firstly, the SL-10 was rotated by a direct drive precision motor than than by a belt drive (like the Linn) or a little rubber idler wheel (like the Goldrings). Secondly, the pickup arm moved tangentially to the record by means of servos, ensuring no tracking errors. Thirdly, as the record was clamped onto the spindle, you could play records with the player fixed to the wall, should you so desire. Finally, it had optical sensors to check there was a record on the platter and to judge the size & speed. (If you had a 33.3 7″ EP you could manually pre-set the speed as well).
As picture discs were becoming prevalent, the player came with two black paper circles that you could orient to manually set the size and it even had a pop-up large centre should you have a dinked single to play.
Anyway, as it has spent the last decade or so put away, I thought it might be time to dust it down and sell it so I duly put the camera into auction mode and took some snaps. Unfortunately, when I tested it, I was disappointed to find that the tangential movement was not moving any more. It might simply be seized up in which case it can easily be sorted out, or it could be more expensive…
Anyway, I bought one of those USB turntables a while back so I can still play records with a bit of fiddling about.
(Someone might want it for spares)
