1970's THE DECADE FOR AN UNUSUAL TURNTABLE PLATTER

The 1970's were the start of the fledgeling hifi industry, with big guns such as SME and Quad dominating the press with cerebral adverts.

Idly flicking through a few copies from that period, I was struck by the number of turntables with strange platter shapes, firstly from 1974 there was this jokey innovation from Thorens: -

Joking aside, lets start at the lower end of the market, who here remembers the Amstrad TP12 one of SIrAlans first forays into hifi again from  1976:-

I remember a contemporary review of this and it came out as quite a good performer even though you would expect the trilobal platter to have an ellipsoid vertical transition on its minimalist bearing - not one hand ground by Barlinnie and Gorbals virgins either!!!!!!

There again, in 1976, if you were a trilobal fan with a bit more class and wad of wonga you would probably plump for the Rega Planet.

I really must have a word with Terry Bateman about this stunner or maybe I'll just have to look it up in my personally signed seminal work 'Rega - A Vibration Measuring Machine.'

For those who preferred to stay in the circular mode then how about the Pickering Gyropoise - does anyone remember this Gyro? 

Of course another more desirable and even more famous Gyro didn't come out from Borehamwood until 1982 and I had to wait until 1990 for my own which I still own to this day, suitably upgraded to current standards.

Sticking with the circular theme and why stop at the platter - how about the Transcriptors Circular:_

 

A suitably stunning design but to me, trumped by the ultimate, the nearest to which I came to being a  Michel Hydraulic Reference with Unipivot arm which I foolishly sold to my then friend Mark Wilde in 1987.  Yes, you've got it, the stunningly magnificent and again by Transcriptors, the Skeleton: -

How I wish there were a skeleton in Mr Mullard Magic's cupboard!!!