Spinning records has been a part of my life since a young boy
of eight. Dad was given a Nordmende stereo console, together with a small
collection of LPs, when his expatriate boss returned to England.
It wasn't much, but it was a 'God-Send' for this lower-income household.
Yup!, it was a HUGE and intrusive thing that occupied a big portion
of our hall in a 3-room 'flat', has a built-in tuner
(ShortWave??) and a turntable. I'll always remember it as "the box"
with lotsa light bulbs (tubes as we now know it!). It wasn't HIFI,
nor fidelity in music reproduction but it sounded awfully nice and since
I'm the "Alpha Brat", this "numero uno" gets to land his dirty little
fingers on 'em and spin too!! ... and that kinda fixed my fascination with
records and turntables. Since then, I don't recall a period
of my life, when I didn't have a turntable near me... that's probably because
I always had one, be it an Akai, Luxman, Dual or Thorens.
My favorite haunts then were Kwang Sia, Supreme Records and The Attic. I'd hang out at Kwang Sia when the little bird tells me a new Teresa Teng album is released! Supreme was where the 'audiopile' LPs were.... stuffs like Mannheim Steamrollers, Sheffield Labs, and MOFI !! Then at "The Attic", I tried imported pressings (USA, UK, Germany, etc) and did find it 'better' but I'm more broke for it.
Still, I bought what little records I could, from my lunch allowance or from a meager National Serviceman's pay. For someone with 'shallow' pockets, I was a late adopter in the "Perfect Sound Forever" philosophy and held on to what I had, primarily because I wasn't prepared to repurchase what music I already own in vinyl format.
When I could afford it, I bought turntables, thinking that soon, there won't be any around.... but I was wrong!! Not only is the vinyl format very much alive, it's gaining acceptance even from the younger 'hifi-ish' crowd who're beginning to realize that listening to vinyl on a decent analog front-end is very satisfying (and I'll leave the "CD vs LP" debate to the academicians!!).
Right now, my wife thinks I'm nuts and she's probably right... after
all, what DO you call a chap with 5 (ok.. now 4)
turntables?? That's enough to last till my next lifetime! but a
legacy it will be for my young ones and they'll grow up knowing that
music does flow from "those black things".
Thank you for visiting my pile of 'junk'. I'll get off the
soap-box and let you head on back
to the rest of the show.
Hope you'll enjoy the stay.
