Why I Cannot Get Rid of My Record Decks

Four turntables, thirty years, and the versions of myself they refuse to let go of.

By Rafi Mercer

I have owned a pair of Technics 1210 MK2 record decks for more than thirty years.

I think I bought them in 1992. I cannot remember exactly where they came from, although I know I used some of my student loan to buy them. Financially responsible? Probably not. One of the best purchases I have ever made? Without question.

That is one of the strange things about memory. I can remember the importance of buying them without being able to remember the transaction itself. The shop has disappeared. The price has disappeared. I cannot picture the person who handed them over or remember how I got them home.

But I still have the decks.

For most of their lives, they even carried the same Stanton 500 cartridges. Until last month, those cartridges had been there for what may have been almost the entire journey. They were not precious audiophile objects. They were simply dependable. Put a record down, lower the needle, and they worked.

No drama. No maintenance story. No heroic restoration.

They just did their thing.

The decks have followed me through different houses, different jobs, different versions of myself and several completely different ideas of what the future might look like. For many years they lived unused inside a wooden box I had made for them.

That detail feels important now.

I did not sell them when I stopped using them. I did not give them away when space became tight. I built something to protect them.

They may not have been playing, but they had not been forgotten.

I also have a Rega Planar 1. I have no idea where it came from. That sounds ridiculous, but it is true. Somewhere along the way it entered my life and became part of the collection. There must have been a moment when I chose it, accepted it or brought it home, but that moment has vanished.

The deck remains.

Then there is the blue Rega Planar 3. Until a few years ago it had a Goldring cartridge fitted to it. The cartridge is now broken, and I still have not replaced it. The Rega sits there waiting, neither fully useful nor completely abandoned.

I could sell it. I could repair it. I could probably choose one deck, make that the permanent one and let the others go.

But I do not.

Why is that?

Perhaps it is because these decks are no longer only machines for playing records. They are physical markers left behind by different versions of me.

The Technics decks belong to the student who spent his loan on something he probably could not justify but somehow understood he needed. He may not have known what the next thirty years would bring, but he knew that music mattered.

The box belongs to another version of me: someone too busy, distracted or displaced to use the decks, but unwilling to admit that their story was over.

The Rega Planar 1 belongs to a part of the story I can no longer retrieve.

The blue Planar 3 belongs partly to the future. It is waiting for a cartridge, waiting to be brought back, waiting for me to decide what its next chapter should sound like.

Maybe that is why we hold on to certain things.

It is not always because we are nostalgic for the past. Sometimes we keep an object because it preserves continuity. It reminds us that beneath all the changes, there has been something running through our lives that remained recognisably ours.

For me, that something has often been listening.

I do not remember every record played on those Technics decks. I do not remember every room they occupied or every person who stood beside them. I certainly do not remember buying every piece of equipment I now own.

But perhaps remembering everything is not the point.

Objects sometimes remember on our behalf.

The worn controls, the marks on the lids, the old cartridges and the box made by hand all contain evidence of a life that cannot be reconstructed perfectly. They do not tell the complete story, but neither do we.

They carry fragments.

A student loan. A pair of decks. A record lowered onto a platter. Years inside a box. A blue Rega waiting for a new cartridge. Music returning whenever life leaves enough room for it.

I sometimes look at all these decks and wonder why one person needs so many ways to play a record.

The practical answer is that I do not.

The truthful answer is that I am not keeping four record decks.

I am keeping the person who bought them, the person who protected them, the person who forgot parts of their story and the person who still intends to listen again.

And perhaps that is why I cannot get rid of any of them.

They have not simply survived my life.

In their own quiet way, they have helped me recognise it.

Why do people become emotionally attached to old record players?

A record player can become connected to particular periods, homes, relationships and discoveries. Over time, it stops being only a piece of audio equipment and becomes a physical link to the person who originally chose and used it.

Are Technics 1210 MK2 turntables still worth keeping?

For many owners, their value goes beyond money. Their durable construction, direct operation and association with decades of DJ and listening culture have made them machines people often keep for life.

Is it worth repairing an old Rega Planar 3?

A Planar 3 can often be returned to use by replacing worn components such as the belt, cartridge or stylus. Whether it is financially sensible depends on its condition, but the emotional value of bringing a familiar deck back to life can matter just as much.

Rafi Mercer writes about the spaces where music matters. For more stories from Tracks & Tales, subscribe, or click here to read more.

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