I love music! It’s one of my lifelong passions.

  I've also grown up with a love and of and an obsession with hi-fi since the late 1970s, when, at the age of 12, I visited Harrods hi-fi department. I put on a pair of Sennheiser headphones connected to a Technics reel to reel tape machine and listened to a master copy of Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours' album…….it was the most amazing thing I'd ever heard. From that moment on, I was eternally hooked into high fidelity sound and began my journey as an audiophile.

As an audiophile, I have been immersed in hi-fi for many years and have grown up with pretty much every brand you can think of through all parts of the spectrum. I have many friends in the industry from those within manufacturers to distributors through to dealers. I also managed several hi-fi stores back in the day and worked closely with a friend running a shop in Oxfordshire. Over the years I have learned what goes into making music come to life, having spent many hours demoing equipment, plus visiting and exhibiting at countless shows and exhibitions worldwide.

One of the main points I like to share is that I have learned hi-fi and everything that comes with it is extremely subjective to each listener. What I like compared to someone else can sometimes be polar opposite, or it can sometimes be very similar to what they like. Also, to make things even more complex, equipment can vary significantly in performance, and varying results can be had by connecting different equipment together. Having said that, much of the difference in sound reproduction ultimately happens at the loudspeaker end of the system, and I am adamant about this point, so don't let anyone ever try to convince you otherwise....some might in the audiophile world.... but they are wrong :).

  So when it comes to sound reproduction, there are fundamentals, or foundation parts of the system which are far less subjective. This comes down to sheer quality of the sound being captured along its journey, which is something that can very much be measured and quantified. It is either a good quality signal, a bad one, or something in between.

  In this case, the subjectiveness of the sound we hear is not generally up for discussion. Compare it to watching a VHS video recording from the 1990s played into a brand new Ultra HD OLED TV, compared to a feed from a 4K blu ray recording. The difference in quality would be very apparent (although I have spoken to people who say they cannot see the difference between a low resolution and high resolution video image.....which proves my point about subjectiveness!). An extreme example but hopefully it makes the point. So when we then consider hi-fi sound reproduction at the front end, there are distinct areas of quality that most can agree on without any subjectiveness to discuss. The results are as obvious and the visual example with the TV. You can plug a portable 1970s cassette tape recorder or a 2018 CD player into a £5000 amplifier and speaker system and everyone will likely agree which one sounds better.

When we then get to what I would consider a very respectable level of sound quality from turntables, the differences can still be measured, but become harder to differentiate. So we then all begin to revert to trying to be subjective in how different they sound to us. The other factor to consider here is what I call the 'snob' factor, which is rife in the world of hi-fi. Some will turn their nose up at Technics and the like, just because an elitist brand with all its façade and high price tags tells them something is far superior. I often refer to this as the ‘Apple effect’. If you are familiar with the Apple brand compared to all the other phones on the market, you’ll get my point. Many love the Apple brand, but are they really that much better than other phones and can you justify the price tag?

My quest and enjoyment since my teenage years has been to take the best quality hi-fi components within a budget to create the most impressive sound. I guess this came naturally, as a typical student in the 1980s with a very limited budget! This is where I first discovered that the likes of Technics and some other brands manufactured products that really stood out amongst the rest. Interestingly, it's now only years later that I also realise how much quality went into the design and build of the early Technics turntables, as they are still running and sounding just as superb some four decades later!

I recently had the opportunity of returning to full-time study as a university student. My peers suddenly became a bunch of guys in their late teens/early 20s and I discovered through them there was a rivival of vinyl. One friend in particular was just as obsessed as I was at his age about music and hi-fi, but more interestingly in vinyl. From fixing and restoring Technics turntables for myself, friends and family, it lead to being encouraged by my student friends and others to start restoring these amazing machines for others....so here I am!

I share all of the above experiences to show that my efforts in restoring Technics turntables has come from a deep passion to bring them back to the former glory they rightly deserve and pass this on for others to discover the same. I think it's fair to say that most sellers are only really looking to get a decent return on there sales which most will agree is perfectly fine and acceptable. My angle is to sell Technics turntables because I have always passionately believed in their brand and a desire to share this with others. So my return on the investment I have made in selling Technics turntables is one for the time I take in restoring them and taking much pride in doing so.