BSR MP 60
A turntable that shows up in the parts lists and the disco consoles, and almost nowhere in the spec sheets.
Overview
The MP 60 is a BSR turntable with a thin paper trail. The archive's own research came back empty on the basics - no confirmed production years, no original price, no dimensions or drive specs - so what's known comes from dealer listings and trade coverage, not a factory data sheet. What does survive is a 1972 Studio Sound dealer price list. It puts the MP 60 under "More Expensive Turntables," at £11.95 as a changer and £116.75 when supplied "Wired on P C", meaning mounted on a plinth with a platter cover. The same list brackets it with the 610 (£22.75 wired), the 310 (£10.90, or £16.95 wired), and the HT70 (£24.25 wired). By price that puts the MP 60 near the bottom of BSR's deck lineup, whatever the list heading says.
The dual pricing is the useful detail. A bare MP 60 changer at £11.95 was a component for someone building their own system. At £116.75 with plinth and cover it was a complete, ready-to-run deck. Trade coverage of the era's disco equipment describes the Carlsbro twin-deck disco console as "fitted with BSR McDonald MP60 turntables," along with two faders, cueing devices, and a push-button mic override. So the MP 60 ended up as a working deck inside a package built by another firm, not in a hi-fi rack on its own.
The "McDonald" in that Carlsbro description is BSR's other badge. BSR sold under the McDonald name, and it shows up at the 1970 International Audio Festival and Fair, where BSR's stand listed transcription units, record changers, turntables, cartridges, plinths, and covers. The company also announced its move into the transcription field there with the McDonald 810 at £45.5s.
The mechanical details are where the record goes quiet. The fact sheet carries no drive type, no tonearm description, no speeds, no wow-and-flutter figure, no dimensions, and no weight, and the archive won't invent them. What can be said is that it was an automatic turntable sold as a changer, priced as an entry-level unit, and used by at least one manufacturer as the engine of a disco console. Trade coverage of the International Audio Festival and Fair noted BSR's standing as the world's largest manufacturers of record changers at the time the McDonald line was being promoted. The MP 60 came out of that: a mass-market changer from a company that built them by the tens of thousands.
Today the MP 60 rarely surfaces under its own name. It shows up inside Carlsbro consoles, in dealer parts lists, and occasionally as a loose changer pulled from a plinth. The £11.95 and £116.75 figures from that 1972 Studio Sound list are the only pricing on record. They describe a cheap, serviceable deck meant to be installed. Maintenance notes specific to the MP 60 aren't documented in the archive's sources, so a buyer should expect to service any BSR changer of this vintage as a matter of general caution. That isn't a documented fault.
The MP 60 is a footnote model. It mainly shows how BSR's changer business worked: badged, priced by the plinth, and sold into other people's systems.
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