Dansette 'Viva' record player, 1965: details and images

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1.		The controls where simple: ON/Volume/OFF and Tone. The tone control simply reduced the treble content of the sound and was typical of equipment of the time. This model dates from 1965 and is included here because it is typical in every way of the cheap, popular record players available at the time.
2.		This is a close-up of the textured speaker grille material. The name Dansette evokes both dancing and the unit's small portable size and has become associated with the vibrant pop music scene of the mid-1960s. Indeed, the name has passed into general use for any portable record player of this type.
3.		Like most record players of the time, the Dansette Viva had an autochanger (automatic record changing device). After playing the first record, the arm moved back to the rest position. Levers connected the arm mechanism to a cam in the spindle, which retracted into the arm, dropping the next record onto the turntable.
4.		This shows the autochanger mechanism loaded with discs and a disc being played on the turntable. After a new disc was loaded the arm would then move over and lower the stylus onto the next disc, starting play automatically.
5.		There were many Dansette models, available in a range of colours, with red the most common. Many thousands of these units were sold but their popularity declined sharply in the early 1970s as inexpensive stereophonic equipment began to appear.

Rotations and views

A selection of views from the interactive rotations, to view the whole set of rotation images you can download dansette.zip (6.7MB) which contains all 36 images.

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