Bush RPA 1

I bought one of these (two actually-one was a present) in a sale about two years ago. I paid under GBP 10 per set, which was remarkable. Normal retail price appears to be in the GBP 35-45 range.

The unit comprises a range of features that wouldn't have been hard to find a generation or so ago, but which are rare now. What we have here is what used to be called a radiogram - a combination of radio and record player with built - in speakers. ...
...the illustration, but the turntable is 17cm, with the entire unit being 30cm wide. The radio part includes an analogue tuner with medium wave and stereo FM (there's no LW), There is a facility for switching off the stereo decoder in case of poor reception, and a red LED indicator to aid tuning. The tuning scale has an illuminted yellow LED cursor. The FM aerial is of the wire type and gives satisfactory reception and performance - maybe on the level ... more

I bought one of these (two actually-one was a present) in a sale about two years ago. I paid under GBP 10 per set, which was remarkable. Normal retail price appears to be in the GBP 35-45 range.

The unit comprises a range of features that wouldn't have been hard to find a generation or so ago, but which are rare now. What we have here is what used to be called a radiogram - a combination of radio and record player with built - in speakers. It's very compact - it's not possible to tell from the illustration, but the turntable is 17cm, with the entire unit being 30cm wide. The radio part includes an analogue tuner with medium wave and stereo FM (there's no LW), There is a facility for switching off the stereo decoder in case of poor reception, and a red LED indicator to aid tuning. The tuning scale has an illuminted yellow LED cursor. The FM aerial is of the wire type and gives satisfactory reception and performance - maybe on the level of a transistor radio through the set's own speakers (the set can be plugged in to an external amplifier and speakers). There is a single volume control (there's no balance control on the set itself) and no tone control. There is a small jack headphone socket.

And so on to the set's nowadays-unusual feature: the turntable. It will play at 33rpm and 45rpm and while there's no full or part automatic function as such, the turntable can be set to switch off when the arm is at rest and when the record finishes playing. It will play all sizes of vinyl even LPs, and there are slots in the lid which even allow the lid to be closed while an LP is playing. As for the performance of the turntable, there's a mixture of good and bad; as my samples were purchased, performance was satisfactory while playing LPs, but while playing 7" records at 45rpm the set produced a distracting amount of flutter. This was due to the turntable itself being very light and the problem was resolved by gluing steel washers under the turntable. This increased the mass (inertia) of the turntable and absorbed the flutter. This modification is within the reach of the average handy-person but would of course invalidate the warranty!

In view of all this, my RPA1 does good service as a second audio system. If one has vinyl which one listens to occasionally, it may be the answer. The possibility of connecting it up to a spare amp and speakers increases listening enjoyment. But if one simply wants a turntable to connect to one's existing hi-fi then one is better off buying one of those. 

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