Philips 308

bsteckler

Member
So I just bought one of these off of Craigslist for $35, It includes a stock tonearm and a Shure 3X cartridge. It needs some cosmetic work and probably some contact cleaning, but it is in operable condition and I tested it before I bought it. I have not been able to find much information about this unit, other than people contrasting its (supposedly) bad build quality with its (supposedly) good sound. Does anyone on AK own one of these? If so, what do you think?
 
The first modern hifi turntable I ever owned. The Philips 308 is like a GA-212 but with a 10" platter and manual controls, or (more accurately), like the GA-427 but with a nicer arm.

Bought one used in 1977 for $50, used it for a couple of years then gave it to my parents who used it for a long time. It ended up in their basement and was too damaged by humidity and general neglect to salvage when we cleaned it out in 2007 :-(


A very nice entry level turntable; I used a Grado F1+ on it with excellent results. I do believe we disconnected the end of record shut-off as it created too much drag.

Note the extremely sophisticated speed selection mechanism and the dustcover kickstand :)

I would say its build quality is easily equivalent to the GA-212/312. I also always liked its simple, elegant European styling.

See thumbnail for a photo I appropriated from teh interwebs...

EDIT: Vinyl Engine has an SM for the very similar 408: http://www.vinylengine.com/library/philips/ga-408.shtml
EDIT^2: close but no cigar: http://members.fortunecity.com/fyldige/philips1974.htm
 

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Ooo, thats a very nice looking deck, and I see it carries the HiFi logo, so it would be a great match for my N2510 cassette deck which bears the same. Its encouraging to hear what mrh has to say, I hope this tt works out for you.
 
I don't own one, but have seen sevaral in action at peoples homes, rather nice looking units and they perform decently.
 
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