My first record player was a Webcor all-in-one (clasp lid, red leatherette) when I was eight. My first turntable was a home-brew, motor/platter and tonearm/cartridge as parts from Lafayette Radio; a friend of my Dad's made me a base. Two years later I'd saved enough to buy a used Garrard RC80. And the addiction continued....
1982, Technics SL-B1 with a Grado cart, don't recall which one. Later upgraded to Stanton 681EEE-s. Nice combo. That cart cost more than the deck.
Pioneer PL-10, bought senior year in high school 1974-75 with money made working in a grocery store. No real stereo places near me, so I did mail order from someplace in NJ. At the same time got a Pioneer 15 wpc receiver and a pair of forgettable speakers with real wood cabinets! EDIT: $400 1974 dollars for everything!
Mom and Dad's Electrohome console sat in the family home's living room for many years, and was played all the time. (I think my first album was the Alvin and the Chipmunks first Christmas album.) In the early '70s I got a Sears combo unit (AM/FM, 8-track, turntable with ceramic cartridge) for my bedroom. It wasn't until the mid-'70s that the Electrohome gave way to a Pioneer system, which included the PL-510A turntable (and probably a Shure M91ED cartridge.) I got rid of the Sears in the late '70s as I headed to university and went all-separates, including an AR-77XB turntable (with either an ADC or Stanton cartridge.) The full-manual AR eventually gave way to the full-automatic Yamaha P-850 turntable (currently still in use - rarely - in my main HT - with Stanton 681EEE cartridge.) I still own the Pioneer PL-510A. That's my entire turntable history. Jeff
A Kenner Close n Play when I was 4 or 5 in 1968 ish. A Capehart with a built in BSR/ceramic cartridge when I was 10 in around 1973. I was the last out of 8 kids. Lots of records and cheap players passed through our house.
Grew up playing records on a BSR turntable in a console that my dad bought in the mid '70s. But the first turntable I bought would have been a Technics SL-5 linear tracking DD deck with an AT P-Mount cartridge. I bought it with money earned working as a cashier at Eckerd Drugs. I still remember it rolling off the conveyor at Service Merchandise. This would have been in 1985. Hooked it to a boombox in my room with a radio shack phono preamp. I bought Technics receiver and pair of Advent Baby II speakers when I was in college a few years later. I had roommates that pretty good stereo gear as a freshman and sophomore but we always used my turntable.
Lemme try to understand; your first TT was a friggin' Beogram ?! Rich sod ! Could you not have started with a low-tier japanese one like most of us ?! Just kidding, of course; wished I'd started up top myself, but given how things are, I'm lucky to have a rig, at all. SWEET state-of-the-art TT man; pity you ever sold it !
Dude; my mom owned that TT, along with a whole Philips rig ! He asked my dad for Akai (open reel and all) and the cheap bastid bought him the cheapest one he could find. But I learned to operate it handle records properly on it.
It seems we all remember very well make and model of our first turntable, even if many years have passed by...
Not a rich sod at all. My parents were quite old when I was born and both were retired by the time I started college. I worked my way through college and saved for months to buy that turntable (gave up a lot of beer and pizza). Prior to that table, I was still listening to 8-track tapes. That was a practical choice, not one based on sound quality. I grew up out in the country so spent a lot of time driving to and from school and any place else I wanted/needed to be. 8-tracks let me listen to my music in my pickup truck. Plus I had an older brother with lots of 8-tracks I could borrow. Once I arrived on campus, all the other kids in my dorm had turntables - including my roommate (a Technics SL-23). So, I started saving up for my own. One thing I learned from my dad: buy quality, but don't buy it new. Buy "low mileage" recent models in near mint condition. Let someone else take that big initial depreciation hit. That's what I did with the Beogram 3400. I really wanted a Beogram 4004 linear tracker (it was just so freaking cool), but it was $900. The 3400 was $495 new, but a local stereo store had a slightly used one that someone had traded in on a 4004, so they let me have it for $295. Still a lot of money at that time, but as my dad would say, "a good value".
Me too ! They'd just been discontinued down here, and you could buy a dozen of them for the price of an LP. They didn't sound like wax but weren't too shabby either (and better than cassettes to my ears; played them on a used Grundig 8-track deck) ''Rich sod'', was totally in jist; I had to work and save for my stuff too man. But man a Beogram ! What a beaut ! I remember lusting after the Revox and Mitsubishi TTs.
