A couple of months ago I dusted off my old late ’70s turntable, which I got s/h sometime in the later ’80s. I gave it a bit of an overhaul (cartridge alignment, tracking weight, anti-skid, levelling etc) and played a couple of albums. It was reluctant to start up at first (unresponsive control touch pads – see photo) but then it decided that it was going to work after all.
I’d not used it at all since then but yesterday, having moved it and the rest of my audio stuff to a new position in the room I thought I’d play an album or two.
Once again it would not start up unless the relevant touch pad was repeatedly tapped until it responded. Unresponsive touch pads seem to be a common fault on these decks as they get old. After it had been playing for a bit however, the touchpad response was fine.
It sounds pretty good, within the limitations of the rest of my fairly inferior setup.
These decks seem to be pretty well-regarded by turntable enthusiasts. It doesn’t have the original tonearm, as the previous owner fitted a Stax UA-7 with what looks like a carbon fibre pipe tube and headshell. I fitted a Stanton 505 cartridge with a yellow D-8K stylus.The deck suspension looks like it needs sorting out but the arm and platter are currently level, if the built-in bubble level can be relied on.
Oops. Wrong photo! We seem to be back to my favourite spoon.
But what a spoon that is!
Anyway, let’s see if this one works: https://imgur.com/a/NpAfn4z
I genuinely thought this was some part of a post-millennium hipster turntable!
Phwoar! Is that a nine-incher? etc…
Those STDs can be hard to shake.
78?! Strewth.
I finally sorted out my 1987 SME Revolver turntable recently. The gubbins that holds the arm and rest had worked loose and I couldn’t figure out how the damn thing was fixed. Every screw seemed tight and the fixtures through the base were all immovable – I was at my wits end as I really didn’t want to junk it and buy another, and then I found a tiny screw at the back which I had missed….a quarter turn and bingo!! Then I found the stylus needed replacing….£95 for a Goldring, ouch!! Sounds great though…!!
Pre-smart phone touch controls are generally rubbish. My washing machine has one to select the temperature and defaults to 60C, which is why I have a sore finger from jabbing the control, and why all my clothes are too small for me.
The Stanton 505 is a budget DJ scratcher. Your deck and arm could home a nicer modern MM cart. There are loads to choose from.
My Dual 505 was in a bad way in the loft so I gave it a full lube and fixed the starter switch – there are loads of YouTube videos telling you how. This one is brilliant but NSFW – contains turntable p*rn.
Sir! Permission to leave the classroom, Sir? I’ve just had an accident.
Clearing out the parental home a couple of years back yielded my Dad’s Sansui SR212 semi-automatic turntable. Quite a nice belt-drive medium range jobbie from the late 70s. I’d lubed it a few years back when my Dad had discovered that it wasn’t running well, so I knew the innards quite well already. On returning it to Castle Fox I discovered that it didn’t rotate badly anymore; it didn’t rotate at all, so it was opened up once more and I embarked upon the inevitable YouTube search for some bloke ripping one open and servicing it.
Bingo!
Once I’d found the eensy weensy grub screw that secures the main bearing, it turned out that the lube I’d used years before for the main bearing (3 in 1) had degenerated into something with the consistency of treacle toffee – a good soaking in petrol cleared it up, a tiny amount of (this time) high grade fine motor oil, the replacement of the drive belt with a new one and the careful reinsertion of the microscopic little grub screw and we were once again spinning nicely.
Trouble is, I’ve got a very nice Rega as well, and have no current use for the Sansui, so the poor beast is confined to loft reserve duty until such time as either the Planar dies or I do. They go for around £150 on eBay, even now, so there’s still a market for these old reliables.
I managed to find the service chart for my 505 and there were 6 different lubes required! So I settled on what I had, i.e. Vaseline, 3 in 1, white grease and some bike chain super oil. It seems to be OK so far.
My Dad also left behind the Owner’s Manual and the wiring diagram for the SR212!
The Fox Cave yields at least 8 different grades of viscous or liquid lubrication for differing purposes, from Lithium grease through graphite grease all the way to superfine mineral oil via Camellia oil and the various WD40 variants. I am never short of the right lube. Oooo-er missus.
Every time I go up into the loft I give the Sansui a quick spin through the auto-return process to make sure the movement continues to run freely. The little noises as the arm returns to the rest and the light spring that drives the arm back across is relaxed to its unstretched length is a source of proper Proustian joy. The final sonic signature of so many youthful headphone sessions in the parental living room, sat in the bay window seat with a gatefold sleeve and a cuppa.
You two are just doing this on purpose now, aren’t you?
I have an old Linn Sondek which is gathering dust as the audio connection to my 35 yr old Mission amp is faulty. When it was working the sound was glorious although I once spent £500 on a new cartridge and that was in the mid 90s. I now listen to most of my music on a cheap pair of earphones which probably explains why music doesn’t feel so special any more.
If you fancy giving your Linn a service, I know just the place.
Young kids meant I had several years off vinyl but getting my LP12 serviced and back into commission has reignited my passion (and drained my bank account, as I buy things on vinyl I only ever had on CD).
It still suprises me what a hifi upgrade (or re-upgrade in your case?) will do – a forced buy of a new amp recently and a rewire of my speakers totally transformed my listening which I never thought would happen again to these old ears. Coupled with the repaired deck I mentioned above and I’m like a kid in a candy shop….or rather a bloke in a record shop, I suppose…the difference is extraordinary and I’m totally in love with music again.
This describes me exactly.
I decided at the age of 11, when I bought Dare with my Christmas record token, that I loved pop music above all else. 39 years later I’m still at it. I either had great foresight at a young age, or I haven’t grown up yet.
It think that the latter applies, as it does for most of us around here.
Indeed. Prime AW t-shirt material, that is.
With “and I have no intention of ever doing so” on the back.