Once upon a time it was unheard of to hold a rummage sale if you didn’t have a record turntable for sale; I believe some families had to go down to a thrift shop and obtain one just to sell it, just to get the tag-sale credibility. For that reason, for many years I would only buy a turntable in absolute prime condition — and it was usually dirt cheap. As time went on, much like the ubiquitous Apple ][e, those sellers who had one to part with had already sold it. Supplies of old turntables dwindled to the point where in the past two years we started to buy any turntable we saw, just out of fear that eventually they’d be no more. This tactic, however, means we bought a bunch of junk over the years…which ended up being used for spare parts (which I may write more about in the near future), but we’ve gotten pretty good at only buying valid record players these days.

First, let’s look at a couple ‘eras’ of turntables:

1. Pre-1960s: This was the time of 10″ 78rpm records, and a lot of custom turntable construction. These are often very stylish by modern standards, designed to be a piece of decorative furniture rather than an audio accessory. Collectors of old electronics are happy to put the time and effort into restoring these vacuum-tube-driven machines, but a vinyl collector should stay away. Even if an old turntable has a 33-1/3 rotation speed, a 78rpm needle is going to tear up your albums; these are for the collector who knows what they’re looking for.
2. 1960s-1970s: The advent of microgroove vinyl and new cheaper mechanics brought out machines with more interchangeable parts and broader speed capabilities. The “drop-in” turntable is the most common to be found — an audio manufacturer would produce the electronics (amplifier, radio, etc.) but the actual turntable would be manufactured separately by a company like BSR and ‘dropped in’ to their stereo system. These tended to be cheaper quality than the high-end audio, but were often built with durability in mind. Don’t be surprised to see turntables with speeds from 16rpm up to 78 rpm; many had a ‘flip needle’ that accommodated both the smaller microgroove needle and the larger 78rpm needle.
3. 1980s and up: Before CDs took complete hold, cheap stereos included a record player for completeness sake…but most were of such poor quality and relied on so much plastic that they were of little use to an audiophile. On the other end, high quality turntables with variable speed control and strobe rpm indicators were available even in mid-range equipment. This period, however, dropped all speeds but 45 and 33-1/3 rpm. Modern vinyl collectors without need for 78s are going to be much more satisfied with a 1980s Pioneer turntable than a BSR drop-in from the 1970s.

As you can see, collectors of 78rpm records should stick to eras #1 and #2, while modern vinyl should stick to #2 and #3…but switch hitters are stuck with #2 to get a useful turntable. Collectors of 78s wishing to actually play back their lacquer disks should probably look for a turntable from the 1960s, though; the older turntables were often quite hard on the records played back on them due to primitive needle materials, but about the time that vinyl records began to dominate the market turntable manufacturers had improved on the earlier machines significantly. The flip needle is a must for collectors of both 78s and 33rpm albums: it was possible at the time (and quite often with modern ‘78rpm’ turntables) that the needle had to be physically replaced depending on the groove width. The flip needle ingeniously had two needles mounted opposite each other, and the cartridge was designed to allow the needle to switch sides via a little lever. Even if your turntable doesn’t have a flip-needle, the entire cartridge can be replaced for relatively low cost.

Replacing the cartridge may be a good idea no matter which turntable is purchased, even newer ones. A rummage-sale turntable needle may have been use well beyond its intended age, and could potentially damage your albums. A visual inspection can help identify severely damaged needles, but such an inspection cannot always be trusted. When picking out a rummage sale turntable, examine the tonearm head to see if the cartridge looks replacable: if the needle and cartridge is molded into the tone arm, or if there are soldered-on wires, skip the turntable; it may be harder to find a needle that fits than to get a new cartridge. Because the cartridge does all of the work of changing the vinyl’s groove into sound, being able to replace or improve it can be the difference between a junky record player and a high-quality turntable. I’ve also found that even similar-looking needles are not interchangeable — but if you buy the cartridge with a needle, not only are you certain you’ve got the right needle, but you’re certain what cartridge you’re using for ordering replacement needles in the future. While the cartridges are more resilient than the needle, at the age of most used turntables I’ve found more damaged cartridges than I ever expected to encounter. If you’re going to replace the cartridge, you can expect to spend from $10 to $30 for the low-end, but as with most audiophile equipment if you’ve got deep pockets you can always find something better.

After checking out the needle, the next important part is the turntable motor. Best bet is to ask the garage sale proprietor if you can plug it in. You don’t need a record album, you don’t need speakers — you just want to turn it on, see if it spins up smoothly and quickly, and if it switches speed when selected. Unless you know your turntables well, it may be difficult to tell if a turntable is direct-driven or belt-driven. A belt-driven turntable may just need a new belt if it doesn’t turn, but a direct-drive platter that doesn’t turn can be a more serious repair. I have bought slow-turning turntables that just needed a cleaning and greasing to bring back to speed, which might not be too bad if you’re comfortable disassembling a turntable, so it is always best to spend your money on one that requires the least amount of work. Aside from replacing a belt, the turntable mechanism is the most important aspect of buying a second-hand turntable, because replacing it basically means buying a new turntable. A good turntable platter and motor can be improved with a new cartridge and needle with little effort or cost, but no cartridge can improve a bad motor or damaged platter. If there’s any hint that the turntable motor, speed control, or other mechanical mechanisms aren’t working, the turntable should probably be left where it is.

One more consideration is the player’s accouterments. A turntable can come in two main forms: as part of a self-contained stereo system, or as a component. A component system is the simplest machine — in fact, they rarely contain any electronics at all. With these, however, you will need an appropriate amplifier that can handle a turntable’s signal. Modern amplifiers quite often lack a turntable input, so a separate preamplifier may be required. Record players that are part of a stereo system can be handy if you want simplicity, but the additional electronics can make it more trouble than it is worth if something like the volume knob has a noisy connection or there’s a short in the radio switch. The all-in-one stereo systems are more likely to end up in my parts pile than the component turntables do. If you are going to buy a console system, avoid ones without a recording output — a “tape out” connector on the back of a console stereo can still be connected to another stereo system, or to your computer for recording.

Because the basic structure of a turntable hasn’t changed much in the past fifty years, a nice, working turntable from the 1960s can rival the quality of a modern one, as long as care is taken to make sure to buy a sturdy, working, repairable turntable.

As a family, we’re always on the lookout for used record players. Over the past five years, they’ve become rarer and rarer to find at thriftshops, rummage sales, and auctions. Especially the ones we prefer: the ones that also play 16rpm and 78rpm disks, or lack auto-arm-return action. I’m also slowly amassing parts to build my own homebrew record turntable for 16″ transcription records — but that’s another story. I’ve got a bunch of stereo-component turntables, but we also don’t pass up some slick portables. You know ‘em, and for people older than 25 it was probably the first kind of record player they owned. These simple little machines unfolded from a briefcase form-factor, uncovering a turntable, small amplifier, and basic controls. Most even required AC — not enough battery power to keep that platter spinning. What follows are some of the turntables that have came into our possession in the past year.

Today we went to an auction. It had all the promise of some dirt-cheap junk: there was no advertisement in the paper, it was going at the same time as a high-end antiques auction across town, and it was a farm household auction of an elderly couple that moved into town (i.e. everything they thought was crap, too). We can’t pass up the prospect of packing our van with dollar-lot boxes, so we went — and got the added bonus of an auctioneer I’d never watched before, who had horrible jokes and was getting tired of all the low bids so he started picking on people in the audience that he knew. Well worth the $10 we spent. In that ten dollars, we spent two dollars on the next two portable record players:

This is a ‘harvest gold’ General Electric Wildcat. The Wildcat was released for several years in the late 60s and early 70s, I believe, and people still have soft spots for them today (if they’re not pimping them out instead). We did a good job with this one — it works beautifully. I plugged it in, dropped the needle, and Wifey and I two-stepped to a couple minutes of Tommy Dorsey before I moved on to the second player we bought:

A gray GE Wildcat. This one, however, did not get through life in as good of health as its younger harvest-gold relative. It seemed to have been stepped on — the auto-drop arm was bent down until it touched the platter. “I’ll just bend it back,” I figured, and using my mighty strength it went “pingt” (yes, exactly that noise), and now I held part of the record player in my left hand, no longer attached to where it would do any good. It doesn’t impede actually playing records, just the changer, but playing records isn’t any good, either. The knob controls are all very dirty and the right channel doesn’t work quite right. Oh, well — to the spare parts shelf it goes!

This next portable is a bit of a cheat — it actually returned to my possession this year, although it never left the house. Our kids have had the record-album bug for quite a while, and until my daughter upgraded to an all-in-one bookshelf turntable this summer, this was her main-use record player:

This is a vintage early-1980s Fisher-Price turntable, bought when I was a kid. The record player lived in my parents’ basement until they bought a new needle for it and gave it to my daughter a few years ago. It still works great, despite being beat upon by myself and my siblings (that red on the player is fingernail polish ‘racing stripes’ added by my sister), although the player has always had a notorious hiss. Made by Fisher-Price, it’s built like a tank, which makes it a good portable ‘tester’ for playing records in the kitchen or basement, without having to mess with the nice stereo in the living room.

This past summer, we stopped at a rummage sale — you know the one, where the actual owner is off running errands and the person left in charge has no idea what anything is priced. Sometimes, it’s a pain and nothing is negotiable for fear of making their friend angry by underselling their stuff, but sometimes good deals come because the person in charge was instructed to just sell everything. We got this lovely player and a stack of 45s for a song:

This cute bugger is an Imperial “Party-Time” portable record player. The suitcase it lives in is made of cardboard and paper — I don’t know how these ever survived more than a few weeks. This one not only survived, but still works. It proudly advertises its ’solid-state’ technology, meaning there’s no need to wait for tubes to warm up. Looking at a machine like this, it reminds just how simple it is to play a record: a motor with properly-reduced pulleys, a couple transistors, a speaker, and a needle, and it can play a hundred years of recordings. The Party-Time has no automatic needle-drop, no auto-changer, and only two speeds, but has all the same features as the Fisher-Price player that’s twenty years younger.

At another sale this summer, an estate sale this time, we met the cadillac of portable record players:

This is a late-model Wilcox-Gay Recordio Portable. If you remember, the Wifey got a console Recordio for her birthday this summer — and two months later, we were drooling over the machine above at a sale. We almost did a profoundly stupid thing..the player was marked $20, but the next day of the sale was going to be 1/2-price-day. We debated coming back the next morning, in hopes that the machine would still be there — but, luckily, we regained our senses and determined that a clean, working Recordio with blank paper records wasn’t going to fall into our laps at even $20 ever again, so we bought it right then and there. Sadly, we haven’t taken the time to play with it yet; someday, soon, we’ll be able to record outselves on little enameled pieces of paper, and play them back in all their wow-y and rumbly splendor.

Saturday once again found Derek and I prowling through rummage sales, thrift stores and more. This time we were on a mission. One of our record players decided to die and we need to replace it — it’s the one that played 78’s. I know, I know; I can hear you all wailing, “Oh no, you can’t play your 78’s?!” So we had to remedy that.

No luck at the first five sales. At number six, we got real excited because we saw two record players. Derek, normally nonchalant, broke his cool and ran to them. Only one had a setting for 78’s — but upon plugging it in, the “yeah, sure it works” record player didn’t. Hopes raised; hopes crashed. Bummer.

Don’t get me wrong, we were having fun and bought a few things, including more 78’s. This only reminded us that we needed to find that turntable.

We kept on with the search.

A few more sales later and we decided to try the thrift stores too. No luck at any of them — and I mean not a single record player (not even the Playskool close ‘n play types). Desperate, we went to the pawn shops. No luck there either.

Heading back towards home, we try one last thrift shop. (It’s never easy to just give up — even if only for the day.) There we see the two consoles we had said “no thanks” to on Friday (for I’m just telling you about one day in our quest). But we see no other record players at all.

The quest over for now, Derek and I split up to look at what else is available.

There’s a special, 50% off wall mirrors, pictures and frames, so I walk the store’s outer edge looking at what’s on the walls. Every now and then I have to skirt a table of stuff and I take my eyes off the wall for a few seconds. About half-way around the store, I notice I am skirting around a lovely looking wooden piece of furniture. A short dresser maybe?

I pull open the left ‘drawer’ and low and behold, there’s an old radio in there! I look at the top, with the ugly lamps and the Beanie Baby. Does it lift? Could this be a console? One with a turntable that plays 78’s?!

I rush off in search of Derek. It takes me quite a few minutes to locate him — he’d vanished down an isle of 10 to 12 feet of vintage vinyl (I should have known!)

I drag him over to my find.

He pulls the right ‘drawer’ and not only is it a turntable, not only does it play 78’s — but it records too!

Yup, a Wilcox-Gay Recordio (either model 7D44 or 7E44). Circa 1939-1948 (tape recording came along after 1948, rendering the disc machines obsolete) this is a beauty.

Unlike so many consoles, not only is it taller than average (35 inches) and smaller than average (34.5 inches wide), but since the radio and phonograph are inside the pull-out sections you need not keep the top clear to use it. (You know how I love my flat-topped furniture pieces.) And look at that front! That’s high-style, my friends, high-style.

Now the bad news.

The cord is literally cut in two and tied together, so we can’t plug it in to see if it works at all. “No matter,” I say. “You can fix it, get tubes or whatever it needs, right, baby?” Derek nods. (He’s got a gleam in his eye as he stares at that arm that reads “Recordio” — visions of family recordings and other audio oddities are dancing in his head.)

One problem solved.

Problem two is more difficult. With a modest price tag, we still can’t afford it. What to do?!

Thankfully, my birthday is this month and my mother in law was looking for gift ideas… Long story short, she and my father in law bought me the Recordio as an early birthday present. Hooray!

All’s well that ends well.

(And when we get to work on her — re-wiring and whatnot — we’ll be sure to fill you in on all the details.)

You can’t imagine a book collector without envisioning them sitting in a leather wingback chair and a book in their lap. Classic car collectors are cruising down the highway in their restored Mustang, silk scarf around their neck and aviator sunglasses blocking the wind. Record collectors have their vinyl strewn around on the floor, dropping the needle on select tracks and dancing unabashedly when required. Well, that last part, that’s not me…but I admit that, until recently, most of my records remained unplayed.

That’s because I didn’t have a good listening area. At any time, I probably had two or three record players or turntables somewhere in the basement, but nothing set up where I could listen to them. When we rearranged the living area recently, the best of my turntables moved to the top of the electronics stack. I’m sure there’s a bunch of you who have a bunch of records and only sparse ability to listen. Many “entertainment centers” have been condensed down to a TV, a DVD player, and the cable box, and that’s a shame. Here’s some tips to bring your records out of the basement and into the living room, whether you’ve got hundreds organized by genre, or just a box left over from your high school days.

First, the turntable: If you haven’t got one, or if that BSR player you bought in the seventies is showing its age, it might be time to buy a turntable. As I’ve mentioned before, record album technology has been pretty consistent over the past hundred years or so, and that means that you could borrow a brand-new turntable from that budding DJ down the street and play your Herb Alpert disks. The advantage of buying a new turntable is to benefit from the little advances in technology, like better speed control and better needles. If you’re after a player to listen to your 78s, be aware that just because a turntable can spin that speed, it might not come with the appropriate needle. Records made since the late 1950s use a smaller needle, and the sound quality might not be up to par when playing the larger-groove 78s…and there’s a good chance of damaging the needle. Adequate turntables can cost in the $60-$70 range, and the price goes up with quality as you might expect.

Whether you buy a new turntable or hook up an older one, you’ll want replacement needles. A simple fix and almost always an improvement to the sound quality, but often the most frustrating to find a compatible one if you’re using a vintage turntable. There are so many varieties of needles, connectors, and quality that it might take a bit of research to find out which turntable manufacturers are compatible, what the Radio Shack catalog number was for the replacement, etc., etc.

To avoid replacing your needle too often, first make sure you’re playing a clean and undamaged album. Fragile 78s may still have cracks, even if not broken all the way through, that can catch a needle and damage it. Dusty records may not cause sudden damage, but prolonged playing of dusty records can cause needles to degrade. The basic cleaning brush has very short bristles on a 3″-4″ wide bar, allowing the entire album to be covered during one rotation of the turntable. While most brushes come with a secret-formula cleaning fluid, various formulas (mostly diluted isopropyl alcohol, although the Library of Congress recommends Tergitol) can be found online. Be extra-careful, though: things safe for vinyl might not be so good for lacquer 78s. An antistatic brush is also helpful in discouraging dust from further accumulating on your clean albums. Though I own one for nostalgic reasons, I do not recommend using Ronco Vacuum Record Cleaner seen at the right. It uses sponges to wipe the surface of the record, which could push more dust into the grooves than it removes.

To get your turntable hooked up, you might need a phono preamplifier. If you’re not lucky enough to have a phono-compatible receiver, you’ll need to get one of these. OK, here we get a little technical. If you’ve ever hooked up your DVD player to your VCR, you’ve met the red and white RCA cable — this kind of cable, carrying the right and left stereo channels, runs with a low-level voltage that carries the sound. Record players, including many manufactured today, do not operate at the same “line level” voltage as the rest of your audio equipment. Even though most record players have RCA-type cables sprouting out of their rear, the signal is not compatible with the AUX input on your reciever. In order to plug in a record player to your stereo, you’ll need something called a “Phono Preamplifier.” This is a little box with the record player inputs on one side, and line-level outputs on the other. Simply plug it in between your turntable and your stereo, and you’ll be listening to your records in no-time. Audiophiles usually recommend a separate preamplifier, rather than turntables with a built-in one, because the preamp can add noise to the low-level record player signal. Those same audiophiles will also recommend you buy a $200 tube preamp, but that’s at your discretion. An adequate preamp can be bought for $20 online.

If you’re not sure where to hook it up, check the back of your television. Many TVs have two or three auxillary inputs on the back, designed to hook up the various players and videogames in use today. Give their use some thought: if you can banish the videogame to the upstairs television, replacing it with a turntable, you’ve not only added space for the turntable but also removed a distraction from the room. The purpose is to make it easier to listen to the records, allowing you to decide on a whim to drop the needle on some classic vinyl, so connect it in the most accessible way is the best.

A clean, dry corner in the basement might be acceptible for long-term album storage, but it doesn’t make the records easy to get to when you want to listen to some tunes. Visiting rummage sales might be the best place to find classy racks, like the one on the left, in many different sizes, shapes, and styles. You might even briefly wonder where to steal some milk crates from, but any sturdy set of shelves with a 13″ or greater depth will work for LPs. As everyone’s heard, always store your albums vertically to preserve their shape, so you may need to perform some modification to hold the records upright without putting undue weight or pressure on them.

So, if you’ve talked yourself out of making your records more listenable because it seemed like too much work, or wouldn’t fit into your current entertainment center, take another look at it. For a hundred dollars, you could plug a brand-new turntable into your current system and be listening to your records in the time it takes to make a couple connections and clean the vinyl — and with one handly album rack, you’ll have hours of listening right at your fingertips in the room where you spend most of your entertainment hours. Nothing’s sadder than records that haven’t seen the light of day since the eighties; give your collection a chance to be heard again.

It would seem that it’s Mostly Music week here at Collectors’ Quest, so who am I to break that crackly, 33 RPM stride? Fitting, since there has been a surprising cluster of turntable-related issues that have absorbed me lately. From converting rare 45s to mp3s for a friend, to the odd discovery of unique and bizarre recordings, to that burning desire to cut my very own collectible 45 despite the fact that music is not one of my stronger talents. I mean, the two songs that I recorded were complete genius, but I think I petered out around there.

It wasn’t too long ago that I was digging through a sack of mistreated albums and found a rusty old Voice-O-Graph record at the bottom. My entire purpose for hunting down forgotten vinyl is to capture sounds that have been lost to time, and the Voice-O-Graph fits that description perfectly.

The Voice-O-Graph was a machine contained in a booth, made by the Mutoscope Corporation circa the late 1950s and 1960s. While they were mostly known for their bawdy flip-book movie machines, the Voice-O-Graph machine ventures into audible territory. The machine would allow you to record your own unique 45 (or 78) RPM record, reflecting whatever sounds you chose to make in the booth. Audio cassettes wouldn’t really become popular until the late 1970s, so in an era where recording equipment was not as readily available as it is today, these were surely thrilling machines. The idea recording oneself for perpetuity and aural immortality is one that appeals to us all. Of course, these records could only be etched once, so the sounds stored on them were completely unique and existed solely on that singular recording. And this is where I become fascinated at the prospect of hours of lost sounds that still have the potential to be rediscovered.

The Voice-O-Graph that I discovered is fairly rusted and useless, and I’m not even positive that it has anything coherent recorded on it, but it’s led to a hunt for more. For all of their obscurity and beauty, they don’t auction for very much money, and interest in them seems sparse at best. Of course, this means that there’s more for me. I’d venture that the same people interested in the Voice-O-Graph would be the same people who like collecting family photos from families that are very much not their own. There’s a touch of voyeurism, a touch of amateur sociology, but mostly, it’s about finding appreciation for small segments of captured life that might have gone otherwise lost and unappreciated.

The Voice-O-Graph records came with mailing envelopes, should you want to send an audio message to some distant location. These have long since been replaced by booths that burn CDs on demand, and after that, the increasing accessibility of home recording and eMailing yourself around like some common harlot. The old records remain, though, mostly anonymous voices waiting to be heard again.

The romance of etching your own record is not lost, though. A Japanese company called Gakken produced a technological model kit that will allow you create your own ‘records’ of sorts – mostly for scientifically demonstrative purposes, but that ‘potential immortality’ thing also comes into play. The assembly is fairly simple with the aid of the instructions included (in English, with some releases), and once assembled, the Emile Berliner Turntable allows you to speak or sing loudly into a styrofoam cone, which in turn vibrates a sewing needle in contact with a smooth, flat disc. The disc in question can be anything with a smooth, impressionable surface, but old CDs come with high recommendations. The days of getting endless AOL signup CDs in the mail was a golden era for the Gakken Turntable indeed. Since AOL has stopped destroying the universe with these discs, I usually pull my supply from ultra-cheap CDRs or nonfunctioning audiobook sets. Once recorded, you can only play back the recording on another Gakken Turntable kit and not a regular turntable, but the process retains the same technology and theory.

While I never tweaked mine enough to get anything more than a tinny, whispery sound out of it, other tinkerers have been more successful than I. Because of this, mine is fairly dusty and forgotten, but it made the fundamental (and surprisingly simple) forces behind what makes records work a bit clearer. I suggest getting one from Very Cool Things since they have the best price, but be prepared to tinker to get a good sound out of it.

Of course, you can also live in the twenty-first century like a regular person and just hook a mic up to your Powerbook… but seriously, what’s so great about this modern age? Feel free to comment down below.