Sixties Dansettes/ Hacker Gondoliers/ Bush Record Players, etc.

[23 Daves]

I'm considering getting a little portable sixties record player from somewhere second hand at the moment, and I was wondering if anyone on here had any advice or previous experience around this.

A friend of mine (who I've since fallen out of touch with) owned one briefly in the nineties, and they do make a lot of scuzzed up old R&B and beat singles sound marvellous.  The sound quality by modern standards is admittedly not hi-fi quality by any stretch of anyone's imagination, but a lot of record producers at the time were making discs with the expectation that they'd be heard by teenagers on these little devices - and shoving them on one sometimes does make a surprising difference to the rawness and energy behind it.  The Pretty Things early singles, for example, sound fucking amazing on cheap sixties valve equipment.

Trouble is, a lot of them also seem to completely fuck up vinyl to within an inch of its life, not having the same kind of professionalism around the tone-arm balance, etc, you'd get with a proper hi-fidelity record player.  There are some on ebay for about fifty quid, but I'd be fearful of playing sixties vinyl on them too much in case a lot of the stuff I own - some of which isn't easy to chance upon at the best of times, despite not really being 'collectible' as such - gets ruined.

There's this chap, which is a modern remake without any of the old difficulties:

http://www.needles-and-spins.co.uk/pd_steepletone.cfm



It's a "Steepletone" record player which is apparently quite authentic.  I was wondering if anyone on here had bought or used one.  They're a bit expensive at 120 quid, mind you (and that's the 'offer' price).

Any other thoughts or experiences?  Or do you even know of reliable dealers?