Saturday 11 February 2012

Garrard SP25 Mk II

If you recognise what this is about you are in your mid to late 50's. My Pioneer record deck, purchased in the 1980s went to meet it's maker last week. Doubtless I could have found the spare part somewhere on the net, but it was never loved and I decided to trawl ebay to see what I can find. And there it was - my first record deck! 1971 or 1972 I guess, 15 or 16 at the time. With a small Phillips Amplifier, later exchanged for a Sansui Au101.

It arrived and joy of joys, one channel wasn't working properly, so back to my youth, unscewing plugs, twisting wires, checking soulder and, voila, it works! I nearly cried. The sound, with a Goldring Cartridge, is warm and soft. I love vinyl and despite being the owner of 100s of CDs I'm indifferent to them. That's what I like about ebay; it's not finding a bargain, it's being able to travel back in time.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

just bought an SP25 in the Huntingdon British heart foundation I had the MK 3 as a teenager but this is a MK 4, not as pretty or hi-tech as my 80s Pioneer but I love it with the nice warm shure cartridge that came with it, contemplating whether it would be possible to collect the whole series MK 1 to 5 as a challenge as they can go fairly cheap on ebay