Oh wow. Never thought turntables could have been purchased without a plinth. That certainly is different.
Sorry I have not had a chance to extend my remarks about this issue until now.
In the era I'm talking about I'm most familiar with the UK.
In the more expensive systems, there were firms, Largs of Holborn and Imofs come to mind, who made exquisite pieces of furniture to house audio systems.
I have Hi-Fi year books from that era, that have large chapters devoted to audio furniture. Waf was a much bigger issue then than now.
These pieces of furniture would hold pre-amps, tuners and tape links, often on a sloped closing panel. That is why all older British electronics is able to be simple panel mounted and Quad still is.
Under the top lid there was space for at least one turntable and a reel to reel deck, often two if at least one item. The cabinet housed the tube power amps and space for LPs away from the power amps.
A lot of people will adapt furniture they had to the task.
For instance, at our home the electronics were,, and still are in an antique oak chest. Speakers are concealed in the room also, even though quite large. When the doors to the speakers are closed there is no evidence of their being an audio system in the room. These schemes were common. There are a lot of period homes in the UK hundreds of years old. One of my brother's homes goes back over 600 years.
All of this was not just for the well healed. Many people in those days built their ownh speakers egged on by Gilbert Briggs of Wharfedale and Raymond Cooke of KEF especially.
There were many kits available. Sterns Radio of Fleet Street, center of the newspaper industry, had excellent kits of Mullard designs. F.S. Henry on the Edgeware Road also had excellent inexpensive kits.
Brenell for many years offered their tape deck in kit form, this took extensive work and expertise to assemble. Then you could select a kit for the tape record and playback amps. Then make a case to house it all. Compared to this mounting a turntable and arm was child's play!
I would say that in those days most good systems in the UK, had either a lot of DIY content, or were very expensive turnkey systems form the likes of Largs.
My Turntable case is meant to suggest that bygone era, with its sloped pre amp channel.
Unfortunately this era and the wonderful pieces that housed the equipment seems to never have been documented. It seems to have zero presence on the Net.
I did some installations in my younger year, and I had to confront issues current installers would never imagine.
I was asked to install a system in the Guilt Room of Cobham Hall, which was the ancestral home of the Earls of Darnley. It had become and still is a school.
The Guilded great hall contained an organ on which Handel is known to have played. At the time the great Noel Mander was restoring this organ, and I got to know this great man.
I installed the electronics unobtrusively in an alcove.
I build two large speakers, (TLs of course) on wheels. They were made to look like antique positiv organs, with fake guilt pipes on the front. Diffraction be dammed!
