[dB Cooper]

Thought this would make a fun companion thread to the first-amp thread that is out there.

Mine was a Dual 1218 which I retrofitted withe the oversize base, much like the one in the pic. It let me run the TT with the dust cover down. I didn't realize til I had other TTs what a b@$+@rd cartridge setup was in this machine...

Cart was the ubiquitous Shure M91E. Paid $84 for the TT and $15 for the Shure. Inadvertently hastened the demise of hi-end audio retail by buying from a discount barn, but god dang it, I was 14 and it took a year to save the whopping $330 the entire system cost me including the Dyna SCA80 kit and A25's.

Those were the days.

[jimdgoulding]

A Bang & Olufsen 1900 (may not have spelled that right cause it's been awhile).  Well, I use to have a console of some kind from Sears, maybe, before that bought on credit when I was a pup.

[TONEPUB]

Technics SL1200 and Stanton 681EEE...

[Guy 13]

Hi all Audio Circle members.

Look as if most of us worked hard when we were young
to put aside enough money to buy our (Dream) audio stuff.

When I was 20 years old (That's almost a century ago)
I was lucky to work for Cité Électronique (City Electronic)
in the shipping department and in the evening (Until 9pm) at the counter.

As an employee I could buy on credit anything I wanted
and the store would deduct a small amount from my monthly pay,
until they decided to cut-off my credit margin,
because my installments were more that what I was earning. (LOL)

I bought from the store my first turntable a Dual 1019 with an Ortophon cartride,
a 35wpc ss amplifier the make was SOUND (Out of business)
the speakers were RSC (Radio Speakers of Canada and were small bookshelves with two extended range 4" drivers in a sealed enclosure,
I also bought a Sony tape deck and SOUND AM/FM stereo tuner.




 

[orthobiz]

Dual 1215S. Shure M55E.

Paul

[toocool4]

A Pioneer PL112D

[Wayner]

An AR-XA table. The year was around 1968. This was my first real "turntable". I did have a portable record player in a suitcase for many years before that.



Wayner

[kevin360]

How could I ever forget a turntable that earned me a good ass-whipping as a kid? I bought a Perpetuum Ebner turntable like the one pictured below from our next-door neighbor, but it had a damaged plinth. A friend down the street had a father with a basement full of woodworking tools and we converted the nightstand from my bedroom into a plinth for my newly acquired turntable. When my mother discovered what I had done, she went ballistic. Ah, better to suffer the penalty of acting without permission than to try to secure such permission - in the end, I still had my turntable mounted in a really cool stand (and my rear end didn't hurt for long). Hell, I was even grounded for a week or so - time I spent with my new turntable.



In truth, there was a turntable that preceded the one pictured above, but it wasn't truly mine. I semi-permanently borrowed my parent's cheap Garrard Masterwork portable device.

[WGH]

A Zenith with the new 2G "Micro-Touch" tonearm.

I went with my Dad to pick it up because I didn't have my drivers license yet, sometime around 1962.

[Minn Mark]

A Technics SL-D3 (circa 1980) which I still own and use regularly.
 
Mark

[cheap-Jack]

Hi..

Thought this would make a fun companion thread to the first-amp thread that is out there.

Mine, dated back to my school kid time, was an original stock Lenco L75 with whatever cartridge that came with it. I can't recall how much I paid for it but it is on-line available for 900 bucks greenback. A collector item price.

Though we all go belt or cord driven TT nowadays, I heard an audiophile told me he has gone back from top notch belt driver to idler-driver - Garrard.

He is serious piano music fan. He said ONLY the heavy platter "direct" driven by a high RPM AC motor/tapered spindle/rubber idler wheel can deliver the real-to-life attack & intimacy of the pianist's fingers hitting the key board. Indirect drivers using rubber belts or even the exotic priced seamless cords (as used in the world's most expensive TT - Audio Note Japan Ginga) can't touch it.

That said, I am still using my 40-year young vintage stock belt-driven Thorens 125II. After letting it sleeping in my store room for ever, I started only a few years back to resue it.

With proper tonearm & platter deck alignment, placed it on a DIYed dedicated 100-lb massive & 'floating' stand PLUS matching tube phonostages, I am a very happy vinyl camper, almost given up my CDs & DVD-audios. This old-bone sucker tracks nicely ALL my LPs (most most of my many many hundreds are recyles picked up dirt cheap from thrift stores for 75 cents a pop!!) from Pavarotti, Domingo, Victoria de los Angeles to the Beatles, the Eagles, Acker Bill & Elvis...

Yes, TT is for me.

c-J

[Mitsuman]

A Pioneer PL112D

Same here!

[dminches]

I think it was a Garrard 95b.

For those of you mentioned the Pioneer 112D, I am in the process of restoring one of these for fun's sake.

[vinyl_guy]

Like Wayner, I had a turntable in a suitcase. Mine was a Magnavox. I first real TT/record changer was a Benjamin Miracord like the one shown below. Wish I had not stacked my Beatles mono records

[Ericus Rex]

Oracle Alexandria.  Still have it and enjoy it tremendously.

[medium jim]

I'm pretty sure mine was a Pioneer PL100...

Jim

[brooklyn]

Dual 1229 with a shure cartridge

[Charles Xavier]

Dual cs5000

[PMAT]

Yamaha PX-3 with Grace F9E. Miss it dearly. 

[Don_S]

First turntable was part of a "suitcase style" GE.  Fold-down TT with detachable speakers.  After graduate school, when I finally had two nickels-- I bought a Rat Shack system.  Allied receiver was a re-badged Pioneer and the turntable was a re-badged BSR.  After a while the BSR developed some kind of problem.  The heavy platter was not warped as near as I could tell but the tone arm raised and fell a lot on each revolution. I replaced it with a Dual 601.