Turn Turn Turntable Thread

it does seem to be one side of the cartridge that's making contact, so the alignment could well be askew. i'll check it out later. it's also missing this little weight that hangs on a string at the back of the tone arm, but i'm not even sure what that's supposed to be doing.

Thanks for the tips!

tbh, I'm tired of this turntable anyway. lifting the platter and manually changing the belt to vary the speed seems like no way to behave in the year 2009.

also, azimuth!

it's also missing this little weight that hangs on a string at the back of the tone arm, but i'm not even sure what that's supposed to be doing.

you need this, it is the counterweight for your tonearm.

"tbh, I'm tired of this turntable anyway. lifting the platter and manually changing the belt to vary the speed seems like no way to behave in the year 2009."

You can get a Project Speed Box II for it, I have one for my Xpression III.

"see, i just replaced the stylus - an Ortofon 5E, which just slides off and on, so there's not really any room for anything to go wrong"

except something can go wrong. you can totally smoosh the cheap plastic around the needle taking one off or putting one on if you aren't careful.

how exactly do speed boxes work?

It changes the frequency or electrical current coming to the motor which somehow changes the speed.

xpost
ok... i mean, i was pretty gentle with it, as i'd never taken one off before, but it did seem to slip on and off without much resistance. perhaps as if I was pulling the paper strip from a half-broken fortune cookie, trying not to do any further damage

i use an ortofon needle - the same one that comes with my rega - and i just remember taking an old one off - gently - and the plastic got bent on one side. it was old and i wasn't going to use it again, but it just seemed like i barely had to do anything to damage it. i suppose you would notice pretty quick if the one on your turntable was bent in any way or misshapen.

I think this counts as a turntable. I still have the turntables I'd mentioned earlier up-thread, but recently bought this Seeburg as a project to see if I can get it back to working order.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4133/5056725297_121519fd02.jpg

It was essentially dead when I got it (and had mud-dauber nests throughout the machine) but have slowly been fixing up the electronic side of the house. Once I get that somewhat set, I'm going to have to disassemble and clean the mechanism and likely fix some worn out parts. Ultimately I'm going to convert it play both large and small hole 7"s at 45rpm. It won't end up in the house but likely in a friend's bar or will sell to someone. Fun nonetheless.

that's so cool

hey, so i sell two kinds of crosley things in the store. you know, the cheapo retro things. one is the crosley tech turntable with built in speakers and a radio. and you can plug it into a receiver if you feel like it. the other is one of those usb retro suitcase deals. and they are good for casual use by people who have a couple of old boxes of records and want to buy records occasionally. but what about just a beginner/entry-level table for 150 or less? what should i sell? denon? technics? just want one thing for people a LITTLE more serious about records, but something cheap enough to sell. and i guess it should be usb too? but it doesn't have to be.

imo this one is a little janky, but certainly affordable and FINE

I'll be watching this thread - I need to get a new turntable.

god i wish pro-ject would put out a $150 table in different colors. i could sell something like that for sure. people who didn't even know they wanted a turntable would buy one.

http://www.needledoctor.com/core/media/media.nl?id=10412&c=ACCT106601&h=1b4dca00927fab731bd8

what kind of a turntable do you need, michael? what's your price range?

i always tell people to go rega, cuz i love mine so much. and they have a range of prices. can't really go wrong with any of them. but they aren't CHEAP cheap or anything.

http://www.needledoctor.com/Online-Store/Rega-Turntables

i wish the numarks didn't look like some plastic hunk a junk. but the price is certainly right.

michael is pretty swank so he might need this one. only $150,000!

http://www.needledoctor.com/core/media/media.nl?id=19139&c=ACCT106601&h=fdd60514722ddcd6e11b

The old turntable isn't grounded or something and makes a buzzing sound and I'd like to get a new one with USB capablity to record some of the gf's old vinyl. 69's suggestion looks good but in a house with insane felines, I really think it behoves me to get a dust cover. I'm not looking for anything super expensive - it's just for home listening.

Can't see the image. Link?

these are cheap. hundred bucks.

http://www.amazon.com/PLTTB3U-Direct-Turntable-Internal-Outputs/dp/B00476N8DY

hell, that's what i should get for the store! thanks, me!

Cool, thanks Scott!

Has anyone seen one of these linear tracking turntables like the Technics sl-5 in action? I'm tempted but also a bit scared to buy one for cheap on craigslist. I'm afraid that the 'automatic' queuing of tracks may become irritating after a few weeks.

Advance to 1:00 in this video, it shows how it works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWVGsHuDeK4

I had a Sharp linear-tracking turntable for awhile, one that had a slide-out drawer so you could stack things above it. It originally had two cartridges, one above & one below, so it could play both sides of a record by itself. But by the time I got it only the top side worked and unreliably at that, so I ditched it. It was kind of like this one, shown here with its case removed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bS2RarB0_A

Oops, not that one, but that is a way-cool turntable! WANT!

Here's the one I had:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51FDQWS_pkg

Thanks, those are very cool! I am worried about the reliability, though. It would be my main turntable since I'm trashing the old Denon I've been using. I don't see any turntables currently in production using linear tracking, so I wonder if there is a fundamental problem.

I don't know how reliable they are compared to conventional pivoting tonearms, but the supposed benefit of linear tracking was that the needle would always be at a perfect 90 degree tangent which theoretically would yield better sound quality, since records are cut using linear tracking. But in practice, there wasn't really any audible difference, and the only real advantage (in some situations) was their smaller size and for some of them, the slide-out drawers or front-load flaps and two-sided playback capability.

I had a B&O linear tracking turntable. I'd thought it might cure the problem of pitch variance in records pressed slightly off-center, thinking that the linear arm might slide back and forth to compensate. But it didn't work that way; it still pivoted at one point. Made the problem worse, in fact, because of the shorter arm swinging through a greater angle. Worked fine on normal records, though.

I sold my Gyro SE/RB300/MC25FL last week - to a nice chap from Welling for whom it was his first new turntable in 40 years. And he still had that one (a Garrard 401, an 18th b'day present).

Currently using Planar 2/RB250/Bias 2 into my Cyrus Two's MM stage. It's not bad. Not sure how old the cartridge is. Bit ragged in the upper mids and sibilant on voices but everything else sounds pretty good.

recommendations on a nice three speed turntable?
my portable i was using for 78s kicked the bucket, and the one i am borrowing temporarily takes ~forever~ to get up to speed.
figure it's time to buy something that will last.

Bit late to the 4 month old post, I borrowed a Technics SL-5 for a while in the late 90s, but gave it back because it sounded awful. Around the same time I had one of these though:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2kFPFnhu2Y

It sounded very good indeed, but broke after a couple of years and couldn't find anyone to fix it, so went for a Technics 1200, which has worked flawlessly since then - would recommend going for a 1200 to all but the most dedicated audiophiles.

But I would love one of these with the jog wheel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnKFcdO2wlQ

get this when you are rich:

http://www.rega.co.uk/html/planar78.htm

I wonder how niche that niche is.

I ended up buying a 1600mkII

Got a project debut carbon at the weekend. It looks and sounds amazing, not that I have much experience with turntables that aren't made of plastic.

kinda gushy at how good it sounds tbh.

Burn in is mostly bollocks tho, right?

i just bought a cheap turntable from this dude and it's an old Philips 212. Sounds great!

Just checked this thread because I think I want to get a better turntable than my old Ariston ATT420 sometime soon, and remembered my dad's old Philips 212 which I inherited in my teens. God, I loved that thing. Can't remember why I replaced it, and am now hankering to find another one.