ENVIRONMENTAL SOUND
Environmental Sound is still something of a mystery to me, being apparently in production from 1978 to 1982, effectively the same period as JBE. The turntable looks very JBE-ish. The platter is obviously very similar yet, intriguingly, the black acrylic base of the platter is wider than the FP2001 and both JBE variants (it comes out beyond the aluminium discs). That said, the smaller central disc is very, very similar in style to the FP2001. The plinth is a black laminate.
Owner Graeme Powell sent me some pictures of his, along with the following information... "I've been a very proud owner of an Environmental Sound record deck since 1981. I actually visited ES at their factory in Northallerton and being a poor trainee engineer at the time, persuaded them to let me have a deck cheaper than retail. They sold me a pre-production model with a uni-pivot arm. It's a great deck and been in use on and off for the last 35 years! Albeit with a change of tone arm in the mid 90's to a Linn Akito."
Owner Graeme Powell sent me some pictures of his, along with the following information... "I've been a very proud owner of an Environmental Sound record deck since 1981. I actually visited ES at their factory in Northallerton and being a poor trainee engineer at the time, persuaded them to let me have a deck cheaper than retail. They sold me a pre-production model with a uni-pivot arm. It's a great deck and been in use on and off for the last 35 years! Albeit with a change of tone arm in the mid 90's to a Linn Akito."
Environmental Sound
Promo pic
Steve Walton sent me this image he took in the 1970s, for his friend Mark Lythgoe who was at the time working with John Bryant. Steve was asked to take this promotional picture for Environmental Sound's stand at an upcoming London trade exhibition. Steve also tells me that the cylindrical plastic speakers were made using Habitat waste bins which he was told formed an ideal acoustic cabinet!
Speakers too!
While I always knew Environmental Sound made speakers... here's further proof. These are FF6 models