#1950s record player shelf how to#

The crudeness of the hand crank mechanism on early turntables meant that setting a record speed standard proved difficult. Image courtesy of PMCįirst things first, the all-important speed.

#1950s record player shelf how to#

How to add a turntable to your existing music systemĪ 1955 Collaro record player.In the mid-’60s, Acoustic Research’s The AR Turntable (pictured, above), which pioneered the three-point suspension turntable design, was among the most popular in the first wave of belt-drive models. The belt absorbed vibrations, thus helping to isolate motor noise from the platter. The belt-drive turntable was a much more efficient, simple and cost-effective method, with a motor off to the side driving a rubber belt that wrapped around the outside of the platter to turn it.

As the wheel was coupled to the motor, vibration from it could impact the record’s sound, and the single-record-playing turntable that emerged didn’t require such a high-torque system. For the turntable to spin at the correct speed under the weight of a handful of records, torque was important, and thus the idler wheel drive – a rubber wheel that ran off the motor and sat underneath the platter, acting to isolate motor vibrations from impacting the platter and, therefore, the music playback – was the ideal drive system.īut the idler wheel method had its disadvantages.

Records would be stacked on a spindle on top of each other, and when one finished the player would automatically spin the next record. The first stereo turntables were record changers that could play several records in a row. Turntables on the shelf today will mostly be belt-drive and, less typically, direct-drive systems, but the first record players sported what's called idler wheel designs.