THE GREAT MULLARD MAGIC BLOG

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...

The following picture from 1922 made me smile, it shows a young chap earnestly listening to his (newly built?) crystal set.   Unfortunately, his finances didn't stretch to buying  a set of 2000 Ohm headphones so he ingeniously re-purposed the earpiece from his parent's pulpit phone.  As you can see, mother is NOT impressed!  Super stuff......

Calm down Aunty Ethel!    I'm not talking about "X Rated!"  rather we will discuss "X  Rated!"  as well as Y and Z rated.  Still not clear, then read on........ In the olden days, the  X  rating certificate,  was issued between 1951 and 1982 by the  British Board of Film Censors as a result of the Wheare Report on film censorship. From 1951 to 1970, it meant "Extremely graphic,  where only those aged 16 and over can be admitted," and from 1970 to 1982 it was redefined as meaning "Suitable for those aged 18 and over". The X certificate was replaced in November...

AVOmeter is a British trademark for a line of multimeters and electrical measuring instruments; the brand is now owned by the Megger Group Ltd.  The first Avometer was made by the Automatic Coil Winder and Electrical Equipment Co. in 1923, and measured direct voltage, direct current and resistance. Possibly the best known multimeter of the range was the Model 8, which was produced in various versions from May 1951 until 2008; the last version was the Mark 7. The multimeter is often called simply an AVO, because the company logo carries the first letters of 'amps', 'volts' and 'ohms'. The design concept...

We all know the foot tapping strains of 'In a Mellow Tone"   also known as "In a Mellotone",  which is a 1939  jazz standard composed by Duke Ellington and lyrics written by Milt Gabler.  The song was itself was based on the 1917 standard " Rose Bloom" by Hickman and Williams which Ellington himself had recorded in 1932.  Subsequently, it was further immortalised as the theme tune to the Howard Stern American Talk Show during the period 1987 to 1994 on WXRK Radio.  That said, Mullard got there first as it was with so many things as this 1926 advertisement attests: -