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In addition to collecting the typical snap in or insertable metal and plastic adapters, I’ve also started collecting 45 record turntable adapters. Many of these came with the purchase of various turntables but were also available as accessories or after market. In this section, I’m focusing on OEM parts, adapters that normally came with the purchase of turntables and record players. Most of these would probably be considered more on the vintage side since many of the turntables they came with are no longer manufactured. It would be nearly impossible to come up with every turntable adapter manufactured, but I’ll do my best here to give a nice overview of some of the more popular ones.

 

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This is a Bang & Olufsen adapter. Bang & Olufsen is a Danish company that designs and manufactures various high end products. It was founded in 1925 by Peter Bang and Svend Olufsen, whose first significant product was a radio that worked with alternating current, when most radios were run from batteries. They eventually began to focus on products that were capable of high fidelity musical reproduction. This included audio products, television sets , DVDs, mobile phones, mp3 players, and telephones. During that time, they also became quite famous for their high end turntables, but following the economic collapse in 2008, the company lost significant sales and ultimately were forced to restructure. They instead limited their efforts to high quality audio and video products as well as sound systems for the automotive industry.

 

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This is a Kenwood adapter. It’s slightly different from many others in that it has a smoky clear plastic instead of a solid black or other color. The Kenwood company was established in 1946 as the Kasuga Radio Co. Ltd in Japan. In 1960 the firm was renamed “Trio Corporation” and imported heavily to Radio Shack. They decided to create a more American-sounding name for the import company and settled on Kenwood. Eventually Kenwood’s name recognition surpassed that of Trio’s and was renamed to Kenwood Corporation in 1986. Then on October 1, 2008, they merged with JVC and became JVC Kenwood. Their series of “Integrated Amplifier” stereo power amplifiers, launched in 1977 and lasted through the mid-1980s. They also manufactured a strong line of turntables and record players.

 

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This is a Marantz adapter that was normally used with the 6300 turntable. This one is interesting because it has markings on the adapter for cartridge alignment. With this adapter, you can adjust the overhang and offset on your turntable. Marantz is a Japanese company that develops and sells high-end audio products. The company reached its peak in the mid to late 1970s. During the 80’s, they were owned by Philips and built some high quality CD players. As of the early 1990s, Marantz has focused on higher-end components.

 

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This is a Fisher adapter that came with the MT-640c turntable. Fisher Electronics was formed in 1937 by Avery Fisher in New York before being sold to the Emerson Electric Company and then again in Sanyo Electric of Japan in 1975, where it has remained until 2010 when it was then purchased by Panasonic. Fisher is generally known to be the first company to introduce separate audio components. Originally, hi-fi systems were integrated all into one chassis.

 

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This is a Lesa adapter. Unfortunately, I’ve found out little about this company. From what little I have learned, Lesa was a fairly large electronics company in Italy. Based on their manufacturing, it appears that they went under in the mid-1970’s, or at the very least severely reduced their product line at that time. I have been able to find old advertisements from this company, but needless to say, my Italian leaves a bit to be desired. From the pictures I’ve seen, these seem to have been high quality turntables.

 

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This is a Sansui Turntable Slot Cut 45 Adapter. Sansui Electric Co., Ltd. is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan and was founded in 1947. Sansui initially manufactured transformers, but during the 60’s and 70’s their amplifiers and tuners were in high demand. They were also well known for their 1971 introduction of the Quadphonic Synthesizer QS-1, which could make simulated four channel stereo from two channel sources. Unfortunately, by the mid 90’s, they had lost much of their sales to the likes of Sony, Matsushita and Pioneer. This was due to Sansui failing to follow up with further mass market audiophile components.

 

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This is a Rotel adapter. Rotel is a Japanese manufacturer of high end audio and video equipment and was established in 1966. Rotel equipment is generally known to be exceptionally nice looking. They manufacture pretty much everything…receivers, preamplifiers, surround sound processors, power amplifiers, DVD players, CD players, tuners and multi-zone electronics for hi-fi and home theater. Like the previous Marantz adapter, this also has a stylus overhang gauge.

 

This is another Rotel adapter. Similar to the adapter above, this also has a stylus overhang gauge.

 

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This is a Yamaha adapter. Yamaha is a fairly old company which was established in 1887 as a piano and reed organ manufacturer. It had eventually become a leading manufacturer of many things including audio/visual equipment. They became very popular for their turntables and then made news again in 1989 by shipping the world’s first CD recorder. At this time I am not sure what turntable this adapter shipped with.

 

This is another Yamaha adapter, but a bit more conventional looking. I’m not sure what turntable this came with, but I’ve seen a lot of them so it must have been a fairly common one.

 

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This is a Lenco adapter. Lenco (who also owned Goldring) is a Swiss company that manufactured turntables that used a vertical “idler-drive” to rotate the platter as opposed to a belt drive or direct drive turntable. This drive coupled with a heavy platter created what some people called “rotational consistency” which improved bass and fidelity. Lenco did eventually include a line of belt drive turntables which became quite well known and were widely used in dance studies. I believe this adapter was used on the L70, L75, L76, and L78 models.

 

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This is a Perpetuum Ebner (PE) adapter. Perpetuum Ebner was originally founded in 1906 in West Germany as Gebrüder Steidinger which was owned by two brothers, Christian and Joseph Steidiger. The brothers eventually split and Joseph set up a small company known as Perpetuum and initially made clockwork parts. He later expanded to turntables for home and semi-pro use. To make a long story short, he eventually merged with Ebner who manufactured electric tonearms. In 1971 their main competitor Dual purchased them and the PE trademark was discontinued in 1975. An interesting side note, PE wound up getting the last laugh on Dual. Both companies had been taken over after Dual’s first bankruptcy by Thomsen of France. Thomsen sold them off and PE actually did better than Dual did. PE bought up the remains of Dual, then changed its name to Dual but it all was to no avail, as the whole thing wound up going under anyway. I know little about this adapter except that it has West Germany stamped on the back which at least tells me that it was prior to 1990. In the research I’ve done though, it appears that this may have been from the 70’s.

 

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The Garrard Engineering and Manufacturing Company was formed in 1915 and was a British company which was famous for producing high-quality gramophone turntables. In 1960 the company was sold to electronics conglomerate Plessey. Then in 1979 they were sold again, this time to a Brazilian company by the name of Gradiente Electronics. Gradiente eventually licensed the Garrard name to Terence O’Sullivan and has been conducting business as Garrard and Loricraft Audio since 1997. The white adapter shown below was for the original 301 turntable which was by far their most popular and was distributed around the world. Although the only real difference with that one and the black one next to it is the color, the black adapter was only distributed with the Garrard Model 88 MKII.

 

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This is a BIC (British Industries Company) adapter. BIC is an American corporation specializing in British products. They were among the earliest pioneers in the audio industry, distributing products including Garrard turntables, Luxman amplifiers and Wharfedale loudspeakers during the 1960’s. Then in 1973, BIC introduced its own brand of loudspeakers and the industry’s first belt drive turntable. By the mid 1970’s, the BIC Venturi loudspeakers were among the top 5 best-selling brands. When the company stopped manufacturing record players in the 1980’s a company called South Street Service Company bought up the spares inventory and does supply both spares and service for the company’s older products. BIC was purchased in 1988, and has once again emerged as a good option for people seeking high performance audio at fair prices.

 

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This is an Akai adapter. Akai is a Japanese manufacturer which was founded in 1946 (or depending on who you ask, 1929). The manufacturer’s products included reel-to-reel audiotape recorders, tuners, audio cassette decks, amplifiers, receivers, turntables, video recorders and loudspeakers. Many Akai products were sold under the name Roberts in the United States.

 

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This is a Technics adapter. Technics is a brand name of the Panasonic Corporation. They produced a variety of electronic products such as turntables, amplifiers, receivers, tape decks, CD players and speakers for sale in various countries. They were originally created by Panasonic to show off their high-end offerings, by the early 1980s Technics ended up offering an entire range of equipment from entry-level to high-end. By the early 2000’s, the Technics name was basically retired. This is an adapter from one of their turntables.

 

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This is an adapter that came with a Phillips turntable. I like this one as the shape is rather unique.

 

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I’m a little split on this adapter, but two different people have now told me that this was another Phillips adapter. I’ll go with that for now since I’ve heard it from more than one person, but I’ve yet to see a picture of a Phillips turntable with this adapter along with it. I’ll keep looking in order to verify.

 

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