ELAC Miracord 50H (c. 1969–1971)

Documentation on the ELAC Miracord 50H is thin. What survives is mostly Elac's own advertising from 1969 to 1972, and that's where most of the facts below come from. It was an automatic turntable made in West Germany, sold in the US under the Elac/Miracord name, and promoted as the top of the brand's automatic line.

Elac's ads made big claims. An advertisement in High Fidelity (January 1969, p.111) stated that the deluxe 50H had been rated Number 1 among automatic turntables by a leading independent testing laboratory, and quoted a price of $149.50. The same ad described a dynamically balanced tonearm that tracked cartridges as low as half a gram, precise cueing, effective anti-skate, and uniform speed at 33⅓ and 16⅔ rpm. A companion ad in High Fidelity (February 1969, p.113) paired the 50H with Elac's own 444-E cartridge, calling the combination "about the finest record playback system available today." It recommended the Elac 344-E for the smaller Miracord 620, the value alternative in the line.

Elac's own 1971 copy called the 50H a classic. Announcing the 50H II in HiFI-Stereo (December 1971, p.32), Elac said it had kept everything that made the original a classic, including the Papst hysteresis-synchronous motor proven in thousands of 50H units, while adding new flexibility.