Do you need this vintage hi-fi?

When it comes to music, I firmly believe it's impossible to have too much. Yep, if it's CDs - I want more. Tapes - a few extra. Downloads - just a few thousands further ones for the hard drive please. Records - yeah, gimme those, those, and oh yes, those over there as well. And with streaming - well, er, I guess you just need more time, but it's all about limitlessness, just like the internet itself, so yes more of that as well. In other words, I say ignore those fools who question whether you'll ever listen to "all this music" and ... keep on stockpiling. But if there's no such thing as repletion when it comes to music, it's not true about most things. So yesterday, for example, I found this turntable (with matching wood-encased speakers) in my local street. Just sitting there on the pavement. Stuck underneath a heavily-damaged plastic lid (now disposed of) was one of those cutesy - but quite nice - handwritten notes: "Works - just needs some love and attention".

 16 rpm: the speed at which Niluccio on noise's brain operates when faced with a possible freebie

Hmm, should I grab it? It was - quite literally - right outside my own building. (Like it was waiting for me ...). In fact though, someone had got there first. A guy on a bike was hovering over it and a few other freecycle offerings (he was already clutching an expensive-looking microwave/kitchen device of some kind). "Do you need this?", he said when he saw me looking tentatively at the hi-fi? Er, that's a big question mate. Need? Would quite like to snaffle it up and take it into my flat, give it a clean and see if it works, play a few of my excellent records on it, potentially find the sound disappointing and the whole inconvenience of having it too much anyway and so change my mind and end up thinking I'll have to give it away to someone but who, and meanwhile get stuck with it - more like. Anyway, quick as a flash I mumble, "Er, maybe, but you were here first" (I apparently lack the killer acquisition instinct). Turns out though he didn't want it and it was mine after all. And guess what? Despite the reassuring note, it doesn't work. Broken wires in the stylus arm, it seems. But the old-school, wood-and-metal solidity of this unexpected find is genuinely pleasing and, sucker that I am for lost causes, I'm now considering chucking a few quid at it to get it repaired. Or, not. Is it really just a rather ridiculous retro-indulgence to fetishise old pieces of hi-fi equipment like this? After all, I've already got some perfectly good (in fact probably far better) modern stuff that I use all the time and am totally happy with. I can't really play two records at once, can I? (Er, actually, I sort of can: ie I can put the new-old record player in a different room - as I've already done - so as to play records in different places for subtly different experiences, blah blah ...). Hmm, first-world, Hackney-bourgeois, audiophile-retromania problems.

The hi-fi ultras, salivating over the brushed steel finish  

Yeah, it seems to be a peculiar world the world of vintage hi-fi. Having just cruised a few of the sites/forums I'm seeing people casually talking about repairs to old hi-fi equipment running into hundreds (thousands?) of pounds, of specialist repairers in the USA, Italy and Japan who can do repairs on an international basis (apparently mailing quite heavy gear at not-inconsiderable expense). There's casually knowing talk of "carts" and people trading learned information on specs, model types, tonearm balance techniques and, well, lots of other slightly mind-numbing hi-fi-ery. Retro hi-fi fiends seem to be something like vintage car enthusiasts (of which there are apparently thousands in Britain to judge by all those slow lane-hoggers on the motorways on Sundays). Stylus heads, not petrol heads. No, I come back to the question of need. These slightly tedious hi-fi types might think they need a Thorens TD 150 Mk 1 turntable from 1965 when they see one (complete with original packaging) being offered for sale, but ... they don't. What they need, if you ask me, is to stop salivating over high-end consumer durables from half a century ago and instead er, listen to some music. If necessary on the cheapest piece of tech to hand (a phone for example). And what should they listen to? How about The Fall! Slippery shoes for your horrible audiophile feet ...