A generation ago, people laughed at Garrard 401 turntables, but now they’re coveted and prices are climbing. There’s so much choice for the bargain-conscious vinyl junkie – meaning that the prices of even very good equipment can be surprisingly affordable. In a pre-eBay world, the classified ads of Exchange and Mart and Loot were compulsory reading, as collectors hoovered up bargains. Oasis arrived on the scene, doing well-crafted Magical Mystery Tour-era Beatles parodies, and Blur wanted to be the new Kinks.įor some strange reason, the idea that ‘things could only get better’ began to wane, and nostalgia became the order of the day. In Britain, Rover brought out the 75 car, which was an affectionate nod to the late 1950s’ P5. In Japan, Honda launched new motorcycles based on the look of their late 1970s’ machines.
Suddenly people began to hanker for the old, as well as the new. Whether it was decrepit Garrard turntables, blown-up Leak valve amplifiers or tatty Quad electrostatic speakers, something seemed to be afoot…
Then suddenly stories started of Japanese collectors coming to Britain to buy up old bits of hi-fi ‘junk’, and eyebrows began to raise. At the beginning of the 1990s, people who ran classic hi-fi systems tended to be regarded as harmless old eccentrics, the like of which you’d see in an Inspector Morse or Miss Marple murder mystery.
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