Jimi Hendrix — London Flat

The scene

23 Brook Street, Mayfair, London. The flat Jimi Hendrix called home from 1968 to 1969 — directly next door to the former residence of George Frideric Handel. The irony is perfect: two of music's greatest innovators, separated by 200 years and a shared wall.

The flat has been preserved and restored as a museum (Handel & Hendrix in London), and photographs from Hendrix's time there show a space that was exactly what you'd expect: rich fabrics, scattered records, tapestries, candles, guitars, and turntables. Multiple turntables. Hendrix was as obsessive a listener as he was a player.

The gear

The primary turntable in the London flat was a Bang & Olufsen Beogram 1000 — a sleek, Danish-designed record player that represented the cutting edge of Scandinavian audio design in the 1960s. The Beogram 1000 was one of B&O's first turntables to feature a tangential tracking arm concept, and its low-profile design was distinctly modern for its era. For Hendrix, the B&O was likely both a functional music player and an aesthetic object that fit the flat's eclectic, cosmopolitan style.

A Garrard 401 turntable was also present — documented in photographs from a different room or period. The Garrard 401 is a British-made idler-drive turntable that was the professional standard in the UK during the 1960s. BBC studios used Garrards. Recording engineers used Garrards. It was the turntable of serious listeners, and its robust construction could handle the kind of heavy use a working musician would demand.

Hendrix was known to spend hours listening to records — studying arrangements, dissecting guitar tones, absorbing influences from jazz, blues, R&B, and classical music. The turntables weren't casual furniture. They were research tools.

"Music is my religion."

Why it matters

The Hendrix flat turntables matter because they tell us something about how the greatest guitarist in history consumed music: carefully, on good equipment, with attention. Hendrix didn't just play — he listened. The B&O and Garrard represented different approaches to the same goal: hearing records as clearly and honestly as possible.

The Bang & Olufsen Beogram 1000 is a collector's piece — early B&O turntables carry both the brand cachet and the Hendrix provenance. Prices vary widely by condition, but clean examples run $200–$800. The Garrard 401 is a more serious collector item: a classic British turntable that's still considered competitive with modern designs when properly restored. Restored 401s with modern plinths and tonearms command $500–$2,000+.

The flat itself — now a museum — is worth visiting for any audio obsessive. Seeing the space where Hendrix listened, with the turntables positioned as they were in period photographs, connects the gear to the genius in a way that no eBay listing ever could.