My first TT was a BSR 310X - idler drive and VTF provided by a crude spring. It was a "Black &
Decker" device if I ever saw one. The idler wheel and the platter were misaligned, and I fixed it with a pry bar stuck in the spindle hole. The next one was a BIG step up, a Technics SL-1500. Lots of tables after that...

Laz

Purchased New in 1980 at the BX in Rammstein Germany, A Yamaha P-750 with a Shure V15 type IV cart. In 1984 upgraded to a Shure V15 type V. Which is the present configuration today.Still sounds pretty damn good.

Mine was a 1958 Goldring Lenco GL58/RD, an idler drive masterpiece that was fitted with a Ronette 'Binofluid' Stereo cartridge with a (gasp!) diamond stylus. (Don't laugh: back then the Stereo LP had just been announced and the price difference between a sapphire and diamond stylus was about a week’s wages!)

It was already ten years old when it was passed on to me by my Dad, along with an all valve H. L. Smith 'Prodigy' combined control unit/amplifier (delivering a mighty 3 watts per channel with a trivial 2% distortion) and a pair of EMG 'Corner Reflector' speakers. And thus, my hifi adventure had begun.

I remember it was in a home made floor standing plinth. It may have looked like wood, but I'm pretty sure Dad had somehow managed to source some Neutronium sheeting to line it. Moving it was a four-man job, often accompanied by the muffled pop of bursting stomach walls. Put it this way: external vibration was not a problem.

But ultimately all that effort was wasted because the horizontally mounted idler drive and gargantuan AC motor were not exactly noise free - I have heard quieter vacuum cleaners...

No idea where it is now but I still have the EMG's and believe that the corner reflector is a terrific, if space impractical way to create a realistic stereo image. But that's another story!

Mine was a Voice of Music phono console in maple that I got for $10 at a yard sale in 1973. It wouldn't shut off after a cycle, so studying the works for an hour or two revealed a small spring that had popped out of place. I put it back with a hobby knife and it worked as good as new again.

The turntable itself seems to be a mix of two of V-M's models... I had the tonearm and stabilizer arm from a 1265 on a smaller-plattered chassis that looked like a 1201 without all the flashy nameplates.

1201

1265

The 1201 was from 1958, the 1265 from 1962, but they used similar looking models throughout the '60's.

I believe mine was a Technics SL 1500.
I had a Harmon Kardon Rabco ST 7 at about the same time also.
I just found my AT 15Sa cartridge from back then.I am currently using a Project Debut III.
I have always been more of a tape person.
The turn table was just the means to get the music on to the tape.

Classics indeed! I think 'Voice of Music' decks only ever made it to the UK as OEM models they made for B.I.C.

I had their 'computerised' deck, basically a fully automatic belt drive, driven by a FG servo controlled motor with a 4 character digital speed display. It was capable of any speed you fancied between 15 an 99.99 rpm in 0.01 steps!

Solid old thing but nothing remarkable in the sonic department.

Technics SL-2000. The Black Beauty they were called. A friend had one and loaned it to me in college, and I ended up buying it. I later foolishly (well, foolishly because I let it go, not because of what I got) traded it in on a Dual CS-714Q that I still own, use and enjoy to this day. That was 1980. I wish I still had that Technics, but I love my Dual.

Superb low-mass arm you have on your Dual CS-714Q. I had a CS-606 with a Ortofon OM30E and it was one of the best-balanced decks I have owned.

We had something, Pioneer or something that came from the PX and then after high school ~1980 I bought a Techniques "clam shell" that was a first rate POS. I hauled it back to the Stereo Shoppe in Lakewood WA, shelled out a little more cash and got the B&O 1602 that someone traded in a week after they bought it new from Magnolia, that I still have today. I have had a few others, but the old B&O just keeps going and going and going. I used to haul the cartridge to Seattle when they had a B&O shop to have it checked out and never did they find a problem with it. I know there are many better TTs out there, I have had some, but me thinks this will be the one that I always come back to. It's just a totally reliable no frills record spinner with a decent, but nothing spectacular cartridge.