Same Recipe, Different Taste

[Edward Huggins]

In all my 60 years of selling, servicing and restoring the typical 1960s portable record player, one thing continues to surprise me.
Take a BSR Autochanger, a high-output cartridge, a UL84/UL85 amplifier, a 7" x 4" speaker and stuff them all in a box sized c. 14" x 8" x 16".....
Yet, in spite of these consistent components, the sound from the different makers can be surprisingly different.
I guess the variables here are the cartridge's efficiency, the LS cone's compliance and solidity of the cabinet - but not much else.
Anyone else noticed this - or am I just getting too Geeky?!

[paulsherwin]

I think it was mostly down to the cabinet.

[unitaudio]

I used to have loads of portables and they all had a different signature sound. Even when two record players from different makers have the same record deck and cartridge and essentially the same amp, the differences are striking.

As Paul said above, most of it will of course be down to the acoustic qualities of the cabinet even between models of similar dimensions. I also think speakers were and are wildly variable.

Regards,
Paul

[Clydeuk]

Even using the same valves in such a basic amplifier, there are often some differences in component values and tone control arrangements, coupled with a different cabinet design and different speaker (there is a big variation when it comes to speakers).

[unitaudio]

Another thought; I expect the make and spec of the output transformer probably makes as much difference as anything else.

Regards,
Paul

[Nicklyons2]

My personal 'vote' is the speaker being the biggest difference, closely followed by the cabinet design (shape, thickness of ply, plastic usage etc).

[Phil G4SPZ]

I always noticed the difference in tone when playing this type of unit with the lid open or closed, suggesting that cabinet resonances had a significant impact.

[dave walsh]

Yes I noticed that in the sixties Phil, usually lid open to avoid "boom". Edward, lets face it there wasn't that much of a cabinet so the lid was important but to have a [just about affordable] compact player with a great sound was such a big step [until the "Hi Fi"seventies] that nobody would have thought of being critical then. If you could afford one [or a tape recorder] this was amazing in itself. Hard to believe now but like you, I was there !

Dave W

[Phil G4SPZ]

I preferred the 'boom'.

As the owner of a wind-up 78rpm Fullotone in the 60s rather than a Dansette, my lid had to be up at all times!

[dave walsh]

Fair enough Phil but it probaly depended on the record-especially, say "Shapes of Things" by the Yardbirds. My father [who was very accepting of the "new" music by comparison with others of his age] genuinely thought that Jeff Beck's high pitched extraordinary solo was at the wrong speed

Dave

[Phil G4SPZ]

That's good, Dave! My own father, sadly, dismissed all 1960s pop music as "wah-wah rubbish" in much the same way as I dismissed my own son's preference for 1990s 'garage' and 'house'. Oddly enough, I now fully appreciate why my Dad liked Henry Hall and the BBC Dance Orchestra...

Back on topic, perhaps the close proximity of loudspeaker to pickup and stylus caused some unintentional and uncontrolled acoustic feedback, especially at higher volume?

[dinker11]

It could be very much a sign of the times.

When the "all in one" deck amp and speaker shared the same cabinet, the overall sound was at the forefront of the producer, mix engineers, cutting engineers and artists minds.

Take a vinyl 45 from early to late 60's such as motown and atlantic labels and they sound great on this type of player.

If you hear the track on a re mastered CD, it sounds incomplete, disjointed and just wrong.

When Dansettes, radiograms and the like were common place, vinyl records were the mass market medium to sell a recording so they were compressed, e q'd and designed to sound as good as possible.

Manufacturers of the players did the best with available materials, within budget, to capture a music hungry public which created diversity in design and technology.

Obviously "Dansette" managed to get the sums right, or just got lucky.

That's why we now in the year 2017 refer to a suitcase style of player as a " Dansette", rather than a " Fidelity", "Bush", "Hacker" or many other manufacturers of the time.

All I can say is that there is a massive lesson that not been learned by today's manufacturers "all in one" players as they are just awful.

[Radio Wrangler]

An interesting experiment would be to take a good modern hifi system, and use it to drive the speaker of a good one-box record player.

If that doesn't have that certain something, then the hifi system could drive the cartridge wires so the record player amp and PSU are in play.

David

[Hartley118]

Cabinet flexing probably has a lot to do with Dansette bass reinforcement, just as car door panel flexural resonances emphasise bass in automotive speakers.

AFAIK, this was first recognised as a speaker design feature in the 1950s in Rupert Neve's CQ Audio 'Q-Flex' speaker which used a thin-walled fibreglass bin as its enclosure. The resonances of the enclosure walls reinforced the bass from the small speaker unit (AFAIR an Elac 9"x5" elliptical).

Martin

[RojDW48]

It's an extreme example but - amp! I had an RP with a standard, quite well made box - I think it was a Tellux - the solid state amp would have done credit to a doorbell but not much else! I didn't keep it long.

[Edward Huggins]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

An interesting experiment would be to take a good modern hifi system, and use it to drive the speaker of a good one-box record player.

If that doesn't have that certain something, then the hifi system could drive the cartridge wires so the record player amp and PSU are in play.

David

Don't quite understand this comment? Any modern Hi Fi system will not match a typical record player speaker installation, so this would not be a fair combination.