Your first record player

[ianj]

Hi all,

Well, it was the family HMV valve radiogram with the first garrard 3 speed deck. No FM, so probably 1951-2 ish?

That packed up in the mid 1970s , and was replaced with a horrendous Fidelity white stereo record player, that was WORSE than mono, because it was wired as stereo,but only worked on the left channel! ****** rubbish!! Mind you, it would play about 6 0r 7 LPs on the bsr autochanger!!

In 1983, I bought a music centre.and that was that. ianj

[ben]

mine was the family radiogram. Dunno what make but it had a BSR monarch deck (ua14) shortly followed by an EAR Music maker with collaro conquest deck. sadly have neither as they amps dies and they got trashed when i was a kid. At which point I inherited a Sanyo music centre (G2001k?) off a relative, still have it somewhere.

[Steve_P]

Mine was a luxury Pye Stereo model - called 'Black Box' I think. Four legs, about 3 feet high, wide thing. The lid in the middle lifted up to reveal a Gerard AT7 deck. The speakers were on the front, one at either side.

The amp had an EZ80 Rectifier, 1 x ECC83 and four ECL82 in it. The controls were on the left hand side under the middle lid. Off/Volume, Balance, Treble and Bass. The amp was in the left hand side.

Front was woven in Grey and White. The On light and Pye Black Box sign were at the bottom right.

Anybody got one?

Cheers,

Steve P.

['LIVEWIRE?']

My first Record Player was a Pye Transistor(Battery Operated)model bought in August 1958. (We lived in a house with no electricity supply at the time) I don't remember the model no., but it had a 3speed single play deck. This was followed by an EAR Battery operated single player, then, in 1962, by an EAR 'Autobat' Transistor Autochanger, with BSR UA?? deck. The Autobat was a STEREO, with an add-on amplifier/speaker unit. Between the two they used 12 'D' cells, or U2s as they were called then.

[chipp1968]

Mine was a BSR i think.. the type of player thats often fitted to black box with white rounded plastic tonearm and white metalwork
my dad set it up in a bought, woodgrain finished fitted base with lift off perspex cover .The main garrard deck was in the same type of case and both were wired to the stereo .circa 1972 i think. one of my first records was the Wombles I started getting into 78s in the later 70s playing family ones i found that had been brought back from grandparents house.
I still have the player, though the rubber mats gone off

[paulsherwin]

My parents bought me an Elizabethan Pop-10 around 1962. This was a typical early 60s record player with a Garrard Autoslim deck and valve amp. I was still using it in the late 60s but can't remember what happened to it eventually

Paul

[Herald1360]

Originally Posted by Steve_P

Mine was a luxury Pye Stereo model - called 'Black Box' I think. Four legs, about 3 feet high, wide thing. The lid in the middle lifted up to reveal a Gerard AT7 deck. The speakers were on the front, one at either side.

The amp had an EZ80 Rectifier, 1 x ECC83 and four ECL82 in it. The controls were on the left hand side under the middle lid. Off/Volume, Balance, Treble and Bass. The amp was in the left hand side.

Front was woven in Grey and White. The On light and Pye Black Box sign were at the bottom right.

Anybody got one?

Cheers,

Steve P.

No, but I think my sister still has the AT6 deck I pulled out of my parents' when I scrapped it sometime in the 70's.

I sold the amplifier a couple of years ago on eBay.

ISTR it had an EZ81 rather than EZ80 which I think would struggle a bit with four ECL82s to feed.

My own first record player was more of a stereo system than record player- BSR MP60, PW Texan and the speakers out of the aforesaid Pye mounted in home made enclosures with a load of fibreglass roof insulation!

Chris

[majoconz]

First one was a Marconiphone radiogram which had needles and old 78's that I used to run my Dinky toy cars around the turntable. Beautiful cabinet, huge lift-up top. Then when Wrotham started on VHF the innards were gutted and a TSR tuner and a Stern-Clyne Mullard 5-10 (IIRC) transplanted with an AT7 and a turnover stylus. No more racetrack!. The record deck quickly was replaced by an SP25, another 5-10 and an extension speaker for glorious living stereo including that steam train! Father still had that when I left home in 1964. I think my first was an SP25 and a Heathkit AR14(??) tuner-amp in 1970-ish.

Regards - Martin

[paolo]

This was mine

[Paul_RK]

A little two-tone green Emisonic, four speeds and a volume control, in about 1963 when I was 4 and it was maybe 8 or 9 I remember it moving on a few years later to a girl I went to school with: I think I must have bought an old Regentone Handygram by then, a more powerful creation with UA8 autochanger, itself displaced circa 1972 by a Hacker Cavalier...

Paul

[quantum]

My first record player was a HMV wind up job bought for £2 from a jumble sale when I was about 9 years old, and didn't it carve up the 45rpm disks I used to pick for a shilling each from the local second hand shop!

My first valve record player was one my father and I assembled ourselves when I was 11 years old for my birthday (over 40 years ago!). It consisted for a single play BSR deck and an EL84 amp both bought from an electrical shop for £3.50 each, and my father built a cabinet for it - it had two speakers which originally came from an old Regentone A25. Later, as I became a little more knowledgable, I added a triode connected EF91 preamp to boost the volume.

[SGT.Pepper]

Mine was a deck which to this day I have no idea who made. Basically it was a terrible clone of that late-70s Amstrad with the three-spoked turntable, except painted white and the turntable had circles on the end of the spokes, instead of funny octagon shapes. I think it had some sort of logo on it, but I didn't (and still don't) recognise it.

It needed a new plug, the ends of the leads were missing, and it needed a new belt, which, after spending £35 on the thing, I could not afford. Luckily that was solved when I got home to find my stepdad had found a Garrard SL75 in the loft which I could have, so the Amstrad rip-off was soon forgotten about. The Garrard is still being used in my hi-fi setup today, a year on, and I think the Amstrad look-alike is in a cupboard somewhere, still in the same condition I bought it. Oh, and there was a Bush SRP-31D which I think went bang and I couldn't figure out how to get inside it to fix it, so it got chucked out.

[Michael Maurice]

The family's first record player was a Murphy, fitted with the Collaro Conquest Autochanger.

It had a single PCL83 valve and a selenium rectifier . Unusually for that era, it was a fully isolated type with a mains transformer and sockets for an external speaker.

The original player went to landfill many years ago, but while searching ebay, managed to but two examples of them.

It was watching Dad, repairing this that got me interested in electronics and the rest as they say is history!

I'll post some piccy's later.

[Phil G4SPZ]

My earliest exposure to the wonderful sound and smell of valves was from my parents' Sobell radiogram, with its Collaro 78 rpm-only 8-record autochanger.

My own first record player was a wind-up portable gramophone made by Fullotone - "Mighty as an organ" - which cost 15/- when I was about 11, and later still I inherited a big HMV cabinet gramophone from an uncle. I later dismantled this on my parents' instructions as it was too big - yes, I know how much they're worth now!

Around 1967, someone gave me a mains-operated three-speed deck and an amplifier in a wooden box.

All this old gear gave me years of pleasure, probably just as much as my first 'proper' system which I assembled when I was a student - a Pioneer PL12D, PW Texan home-built amp, and a pair of Wharfedale speakers in home-made cases.

[Dave Moll]

The first one I remember from childhood was an HMV portable wind-up gramophone. It was probably considered old-fashioned, but I don't think we had even encountered the concept of "retro" in those days.

As for the first one with an electric motor and valve amplifier, I haven't a clue about make or model, but I do remember it being built into a small suitcase (or rather attaché case). The amplifier had two valves, one of which was the HT rectifier. Simple enough for me to have my first go at tracing out a circuit - yes, it was almost impossible to prevent me from taking things apart as a child. As I got older, I even learnt how to put them back together again.

[rovereab]

Mine was a mid 60s HMV record player with a Garrard Autoslim turntable. The outside of the cabinet was red and the inside of the cabinet was white, It just had volume/ON/OFF and Tone controls on the front. I think the record deck was a pale blue/green colour with a white arm.

I can remember comparing Autoslims with my mates. There seemed to be several designs of overarms (some had additional small mouldings between the 2 main projections) and also some did not have the finger lift on the arm.

It went everywhere with me, e.g. to my grandparents in my parent's car when we to stay with them. I can remember tightening the transit screws and making sure the plug did not damage the record deck!

Would love to have that record player now!

Eamonn

p.s. just found this image

http://vintageradio.me.uk/recordplay...coni/marc1.jpg

[ALANS ANITAS]

Cant remember the exact details but I had an HMV (I think) single disc player that pluged into my parents Ekco A110. This did not satisfy me for long.

I had been admiring a BSR Monarch UA8 in Watts Radio in Kingston-upon Thames,and bought it (more than twice my weekly salary). Now I needed an amplifier and cabinet. I saw one advertised in Practical Wireless at RSC in Whitehorse Road, Croydon and set off from Worcester Park, via three buses to collect one. As my personal transport at the time was a DKW 200 motorcycle I did not think that a suitable conveyance.

I used it for about 5 years, but when I came to sell it, no sound emerged, fortunately I had a spare UCL82 handy. I had by this time I had a desire for High Fidelity (or was it high technology).

ALAN

[RGD Dennis]

Mine was a Dansette Senior with a crocodile finish to the cabinet, it cost £32 in 1952 and recently a refurbished one on Ebay fetched £700 !!!

Just wish I had the foresight to keep mine !!

I then graduated to a Pam 610 record reproducer, it was a really sophisticated machine and Pam would not have called it a record player, it was a record REPRODUCER, if any one has one in good condition, I would be interested in buying it as I have been trying to locate one for a long time.

Dennis (BVWS member)

[russell_w_b]

I was deprived as a child. We didn't have a record player (apart from several friendly neighbours' cast-off wind-up gramophones that I used to dismantle with such vigour that I once got my finger nipped in a mainspring gear - Arghhh!! ), but I had full access to my grandparents' 'Regentone' ARG79 radiogram and an ample supply of 78 RPM recordings of Chris Barber, Lonnie Donegan, Tommy Steele, Sonny James, etc... I used to cast my eye enviously at my peers' Dansettes and their modern 45's and hanker for their bedroom autonomy.

In 1971 my dad bought our first record-player: a 'Hacker Grenadier' with Garrard SP25 turntable and stereo unit. I immediately rushed down street and bought my first, ever record: 'Cindarella Rockafella' (second-hand) by Esther and Abi Ofarim! The Hacker did sterling service until replaced in 1978 with a 'Technics' SL-D2 turntable as part of a 'separate' hi-fi system, which I still have, although it needs a new stylus.

[dominicbeesley]

I found a Dynatron Mazurka in a skip, gave brilliant service for years before being "binned" by my step-mother.

All that remains is the tweeter which I used to replace a damaged part in a pair of 80's Wharfedales

Dom