Listen Up
A Swedish made Radiogrammofon Granada III. Photo by Dan Johannson. It was not uncommon in the mid twentieth century for well made stereo playback equipment to be housed in well appointed pieces of furniture such as this console.
Just don’t expect younger people to understand the reason for the revival and the superiority of vinyl in the ears of audiophiles when their only experience of it comes from a shoddy portable record player. Using such poor equipment, its appealingly retro design aside, misses the point of the vinyl revival. In the old days, some people had no choice but to use cheap record players. There were no other options such as compact disc players, MP3 players, cassette decks, or even 8 track players, bad as they were, until later on in the 70s. In the middle of the twentieth century, for the majority of music lovers vinyl record players covered all the options from high end to low end for all but the few who used reel to reel tape decks.
The owner of this Sanyo Hi Fi manufactured in the 1970s and built into its own furniture enclosure was good enough to share his enjoyment of it on YouTube and, admirably suited to showing off this mid-twentieth century ensemble of hi fi with wood cabinets is the owner’s selection of “Early to Bed”, a swinging tune by Elmer Bernstein from the movie soundtrack to The Silencers, the 1966 entry in the Matt Helm series of spy movie spoofs.
Now the situation is different, with many more options for listeners. Buying a cheap, poorly made record player now misses the point, pleasant as it may be to imagine teenagers listening to individual pop songs on 45s played through tinny speakers in their room rather than blasting the rest of the family out of the house with a more powerful system. Those days are over. The vinyl revival now is for audiophiles and record collectors, probably nearly all of them at least in their twenties. To play vinyl LPs now and enjoy them for what they’re worth it’s necessary to spend the money for high end playback equipment. Otherwise, with many easier options available, what’s the point?
— Techly