Califone 1875K re-wiring in to stereo

[shakenbaby]

hey there vinylengine,
I posted a while back about trying to get my Califone 1875K in stereo to no avail. I bought the player with hope as it stated "Stereo Compatible Cartridge" but learned on here from Joe Z. that that only means it could play stereo records in Mono.
Joe Z. gave me a lot of help & even offered diagrams for some rewiring. I'm hoping he's still out there & wants to help! Any of you who might have some idea of this procedure (if what I want to do is even possible!) then I will kindly take advice.
my hope is to be able to make this player stereo by outputting the left channel to one speaker jack & the right to the other. I'm not sure if this is possible, but feedback is appreciated.


some background:
I have a stereo needle/cartridge, the Astatic 13T & the arm has 4 wires in it. *on a side note, I'm having issues with the tonearm skipping or jumping around when I use this needle, please help*

I took pictures of the innards of my player & you can see here


three of the wires (black, white & green) go to one place & the red to another. I was told by Joe that the black & white should go to one & the green & red to another.

here are the outputs:


as you can see in this photo there is just one set of wires going to one jack & a connector from the first to the second.

if folks need more photos please let me know & I will post 'em.

Thanks a bundle!
-Luke

[josephazannieri]

Yo shakenbaby:

I am still around. You have shown the inside of the Califone, and the inside of the phone jacks. Now show the outside of the Califone and the outside of the jacks, so I can see how the jacks are labelled. Used to be that those 13T's could be set up to play real stereo. Also, take a look at the back end of the Califone arm and see if there is an RCA jack near the pivot of the arm. If there is one, take a picture of that too, and see how it is labelled.

Also show the control panel and the labels for the controls and the pots. Thanks!

I will need a little more info to see if this can be figured out. And good luck from that inquisitive, and highly visual old guy,

Joe Z.

[shakenbaby]

whoa joe!
quick to it! I'm headed to ikea this morning (for my first ever record shelving) and I'll be home mid afternoon. I'll get those pics you asked for and we can get going on this!
more than overappreciative,
Luke

[shakenbaby]

hey everyone & joe z too,
I have the goods.


here's my player in all her glory.


here's the jacks.


here's the control panel.





here's the board, some close-ups & the belly.

there was no RCA on the tone arm back. I took a good gander but nothing came up!

hope this will get you started. get back to me if there is more to be done!

pleasantly pleased,
Luke

[josephazannieri]

Yo shakenbaby:

OK. Pictures are really great and give a very clear idea of what is happening. And thank you for schematic diagram. We now know pretty much what is going on. It appears that you will have to change the wiring to get a stereo signal out of this thing because you definitely have a mono amplifier even though you have 2 speakers and 2 microphone inputs, and a maybe a stereo cartridge. I need one more picture to know exactly what to do.

Flip the arm up and photograph the underside of the cartridge and the wiring that attaches to the back of the cartridge slide. I need to see which color wire hooks to which terminal on the back end of the cartridge holder. If typical, the wires will be soldered, and this is not going to be an easy job, because you will have to be careful not to melt the cartridge holder when you solder to the pins. We may have to cobble it a bit.

Pull your 13T cartridge out of cartridge slide and take a look at it. If it is a true 13T it will have 4 contacts on the outside. There will be 2 big contacts on the left and right side and 2 more small contacts on the bottom of the cart.

And good luck from that cartridge pulling old cobbler,

Joe Z.

[paul401]

Hi,
I cant add anything I'm afraid re converting to stereo, but just wanted to say, that's a funky looking deck!

Paul

[shakenbaby]

hey there joe,
here's the front pagers:


4 pins in sight. is this close enough? my phone can not focus too close.
also, it goes (from left to right) green, black, white then red.


4 contacts indeed.

rowing the ducks,
Luke

[josephazannieri]

Yo shakenbaby:

Your cartridge appears to have 4 wires attached to it. I would make use of the wires that are attached to cartridge and follow them wherever they go underneath the unit. You definitely have the 13T cartridge, which is the stereo unit. The way the cartridge is hooked up now, it appears you are listening to one channel only. The red wire, which is normally the right signal lead from cart, is connected to the amp terminal labelled RF, The black, white, and green wires are connected to ground.

Cut the black and white wires off the ground terminal, but leave the green wire connected. Try to play the unit. You should get sound out of it with only the red and green connected. If you don't get sound, then strip the black and white wires and touch them one by one, to the ground (end) terminal and see which wire makes the cartridge give music. This will identify wires belonging to right channel. solder the wire that makes music to the end terminal and cut off the green wire, unless the green wire gave music.

The remaining 2 wires should be the left channel wires . Take a 4-terminal terminal strip and attach it to chassis. The attach the remaining two wires to that terminal strip. Make sure that you use terminals on the strip that do not attach to ground through the screws that hold the strip to chassis. Now buy a cheap RCA male to RCA female extension and cut off the RCA male end. Strip off about an inch and a quarter of the outer insulation. Comb the shield braid off of it with a straight pin and twist the braiding together. Strip about 1/4 inch of insulation off center conductor and twist the center wire and lay the stripped wire to one side.

Now look at the cartridge slide again. There will be a colored wire coming off the cartridge slide directly opposite the red wire. This wire, which I think is black, should be the left channel signal wire.Note the color. Attach the center conductor of shielded cable to the terminal strip termional that has this color wire attached to it. The attach the shield to the remaining colored wire (white?), and you should be hooked up for stereo by plugging this wire into a proper ceramic phono input, so identified, on another amp and speaker combination. If your other amp is an amp with a proper Ceramic phono input you will get a good result.

But it may not be that easy. Auxuilary inputs on most amps do not have high enough impedance to work right with ceramic cartridges. The result will be thin sound grossly lacking in bass. If you are plugging into an auxiliary input you will need to put a 1 megohm resistor in series with the signal lead. You do this by attaching the resistor to the signal wire from the cartridge, and then attaching the other end of resistor to another terminal on the terminal strip. Then you attach the center conductor of shielded wire to the terminal with resistor only attached. Alternatively, you can use a magnetic phono input on an amp-speaker combination. If you are plugging into an amp with an equalized phono input, then you should put a 250 pf capacitor in series with the signal lead. In that case, you just use the capacitor instead of the resistor, but wire it the same way.

This should get you an output that will respond more or less flat regardless of the nature of amp you are plugging into. It's what my father used to call "shoemaker work," but it should get you a stereo output off the Califone.

If my explanation is not sufficient, say so and I will try to help. I will also draw it up if you think that would help.

And good luck from the old cobbler,

Joe Z.

[shakenbaby]

hey again Joe,
I'm doing a lot of work on several projects, this included this week and i'm sure for the weeks following. I'm talking to my Stepdad about how I can do this and he suggested I use this: http://www.amazon.com/Lepai-TRIPATH-TA2 ... +amplifier either inside or outside the unit. I think he may be on to something.
I'm very sleepy and going to run off to bed.
Be back when I can.
-Luke

[josephazannieri]

Yo shakenbaby:

If you are going to use this amp, it likely does not have a high impedance input (1 megohm +) like you need for a ceramic phono cart like that Astatic that you are using. This means that if you want to use this amp you will need either a phono preamp and a 250 pf capacitor in series with the cartridge, (just on that side-Califone has a proper high impedance input for that cart) or in tha alternative, a 1 meg resistor in series and no preamp. You will have to wire the connection with the 4 terminal strip and resistor or capacitor like I suggested. You will need to do this extra work to get proper frequency response, and adequate bass, from that ceramic cartridge.

And good luck from the old parade rainer and extra work suggester,

Joe Z.