Vertical Playing Record Player?

[Disco Funk]

I was watching a TV show from 1985 and in one scene, the person turns on a record player with a record already in it. The player was positioned vertically and was a regular sized player, so I know it wasn't playing a CD. And I could see the arm, but I couldn't see the make of it.

Does anyone recall ever seeing a record player that played standing upright?

Disco Funk

[BrunoRepublic]

Yeah, there were a few different models built in the mid-80s. It was more of a novelty though; the general consensus seems to be that they didn't work or sound particularly well.

[Bernie]

Technics and I beleive Revox or Bang & Olefson had them during the 1980s. Pretty sure they used P-mount cartridges.

[BrunoRepublic]

Technics and I beleive Revox or Bang & Olefson had them during the 1980s. Pretty sure they used P-mount cartridges.

Yes, they almost certainly would have. The design required a short, straight, linear-tracking tonearm, and all such tonearms which I've seen from the period were p-mount.

For what it's worth, p-mount cartridges and linear-tracking tonearms aren't inherently bad things in themselves. The p-mount design eliminated the need for the difficult alignment process (or the poor sound which resulted from cartridge misalignment) and the fiddling with tiny wires required when installing conventional cartridges, as well as greatly simplifying the setting of the anti-skate and tracking force, as all p-mount cartridges were built to the same dimensions. Just plug-and-play, so to speak. The problem was that p-mount as an idea arrived a little too late, so there were few quality cartridges made (and really none are being made now), and they were used mostly in low-cost, mass-produced turntables.

A linear-tracking tonearm is a wonderful thing in theory, but the problem is that it's very difficult to produce in reality, especially at a reasonable cost. The ones made for these 80s tables introduced sonic problems far worse than the issues caused by the minor tracking angle errors inherent with conventional tonearms. Today, the only linear-tracking tonearms being made are esoteric high-end models which costs thousands of dollars... and they use regular cartridges.

[Disco Funk]

Thank you for those replies guys. I thought it was interesting to see an unusual record player like that and I wondered if it had some kind of advantage to a regular one. I won't bother looking for one. :)

Disco Funk

[Bernie]

Here's a photo of the Technics SL-V5 vertical loading turntable.

[Disco Funk]

Interesting. I guess my biggest concern would be dropping the vinyl record when loading or unloading it from the turntable.

Disco Funk

[DonaldCleveland]

The interesting thing about the model that Bernie displayed is that when removed from the stand you could play it horizontally like any other turntable. I know- I have one similar- the SL-10. It is one of the higher end models that Bruno speaks of with a built in clamp for flattening out warped records and adding a bit of resonance damping. (And of course- holding a vertically playing record in place.)

I also have an SL-J3 built for horizontal play only. There is absolutely an advantage to owning one of these models. Technics then like now made entry level models and higher end models. And I have no problem finding P-Mounts for mine, but then also for the past 20 years whenever I find one I like- I buy 2 or 3 of them and thus have a backlog of p-mounts that will more than likely see me through till death.

I will agree using it vertically was more of an 80's "style" thing than anything that truly made sense....but in the higher end models you can remove the stand.

From the day I got those tables some 27 years ago, I never had any end of record distortion. That's something that pivot tonearms only solved with the most expensive esoteric tonearm/cart/stylus combos. Only fairly recently- well after mass record production- did any manufacturer tackle that issue with pivot tonearms, producing a reasonable priced, non-esoteric stylus product. Those linear tracking turntables solved that issue out of the box.

[Discomanic]

A room mate of mine had a Panasonic vertical record player.