Turntables!

Turntables!
One of the things I really like doing is taking something simple and 'improving' it if I can! My adventures with my three turntables are excellent examples of this! None of my three turntables can be considered 'high end' but I've been able to extract consistently high performance from them. Although my mechanical skills are 'limited', I've managed to find a few difficult faults through careful observation. I think that is the key with any kind of fault finding approach. My favourite turntable is my PYE (Diotran) TA5A belt drive unit that I purchased second hand on a motoring trip up North some years ago. The turntable was operational when I bought it, and dating from the late 1970's it was built to generally good standards and it soon became the object of little 'improvements' like a cartridge change (to a Shure M97xE), and a little later one or two 'challenging' faults like a faulty auto return mechanism that was eventually traced to stray lubricant in a vital part of the auto return mechanism. In all honesty I nearly gave up on finding that fault but in the end, careful observation and a little educated guesswork revealed the true cause.

Old and hardened lubricant and grease causes a lot of turntable issues, and more than real mechanical faults! More recently I spent a lot of time trying to solve a very bad motor vibration issue that resulted in severe vibration being transmitted to the tonearm and cartridge. A loud 'hum' on playback was the unfortunate result. The vibration was so bad that the vibration could be easily 'felt' on the tonearm with the platter running and the tonearm at rest! That little fault took a long time to finally resolve but the result is a turntable that is now more likely running better than originally specified. In retrospect, I think the major problem was rubber motor mounts that were well past their 'use by' date and were replaced by rubber grommets (how's that for improvisation and innovative thinking). Placing bituminous sound proofing material under the motor mounting plate also helped considerably.

It was incredibly uplifting to feel NO vibration on the tonearm after these repairs. Given that the original rubber mounts apparently deteriorated with the passage of time, it is possible that I might have to replace the rubber 'grommet' mounts again in the future. That point is well worth remembering as all mechanical components are subject to eventual wear. At one point I thought that the motor on that turntable had failed, but investigation proved the problem to be the ingress of melted bitumen from an early attempt to silence that motor. Disassembly and a clean up and relubrication renewed the motor to as new condition....and thankfully it hasn't missed a beat since.

I love finding 'unconventional' applications for things. I often see designs for interesting and expensive record spindle clamps. If one has warped records, as I do, these kinds of clamps can be very useful. Once again I've made use of something quite unintended for this application, the common rubber door stop commonly available in hardware stores cheaply here in Australia. Just push them onto the spindle and they stay put and work superbly for the purpose!

I often read of comments with issues of acoustic vibration and feedback. One little tip I've learned is the value of carpet underlay as a means of vibration suppression which I've used to good effect. I actually got this tip off Rod Elliott's website. My 'spare room' system had the turntable placed on a solid chest of drawers, however thanks to our wooden floors, even tip toeing in that room made the stylus skip when playing records! Eventually a carpet layer friend gave me a roll of unwanted surplus carpet underlay which I eventually placed under the bottom of the chest of drawers. The result: Now, one could almost hold a dance party in that room. As they say, it always pays to think outside the square........ More to come! Felix.