Phonoland

Hello All,

well, i dragged home the LPC that i went to check out, in my little Scion wagon (amazing fit!) and lugged it up the stairs. the drummer from my band is now my "Jukebox Hero", for helping me with the stairs. that felt like enough work for one week, but i'm excited to get this sounding decent. after lots of fumbling and reading i've got most of the mechanicals behaving well. but the sound is lousy. there's some funkiness in the TSA-1 amp, but i'm quite sure i'm hearing distortion from worn styli, too. indeed side B's sound quite a bit better than side A's. perhaps i'll swap them to confirm the relatively good behavior of the Pickering Stereo Redhead.

Two Questions, if you please: should i bite the bullet on $130 for a pair of grey "T" needles (i believe they are european?). or do you have another current favorite? i also see a used Pickering Stereo Blackhead cartridge that has white needles that *appear* to my novice eye to have decent tips. it's about a third of the price of the new grey needles... they look better than what's on mine right now.

i'd be open to alternates or modifications of cartridge or tonearm, but i haven't found much about it. i don't mind dropping for new T-needles if they will last a while.

Also: i'm getting an intense rumble while playing a record, on either side. it's quite higher in tone/pitch than most rumbles i've heard, perhaps in the area of 600 Hz. it is resonant with a slight mechanical/motor noise from the player. does the player normally have a running noise from gearing or something? i'm wondering if the styli are so shot that the cantilever is resonating with it, or is the player supposed to be very quiet and vibration free? tomorrow i'm going to check the motor mount donuts.

meanwhile i'd like to get some Styli in the mail while i'm troubleshooting the rest.

Cheers,
eric

Hi Eric,
Seeburg / Pickering made three carts "people" call "blackheads". First ones were for the early 100 selects and were mono--Stereo's were also black the first couple of years--they later changed in color only to red--the exact type you have--
White needles--not a Seeburg/Pickering, and my guess it is a mono only replqcement "kids phonograph" needle ??
Gray diamond needles were not produced in years-till about a year ago I understand these are "fantastic", if needle pressure is set correctly--I ASSUME that these are the expensive pair you are speaking of--
Rumble--All "ruber parts" can cause this-- also if the mechanism is not "floating free", or it has worn mal/adjusted thrust bearings--or horrors--worn main bearings--MOST times, cleaning and re-lubing the mech with proper lubricants will salvage it.
Ron Rich

I agree w/Ron's assessments here and just add that the 'rumble' is actually the result of the speed unit putting out approz 83Hz to the motor to boost it's native 33rpm up to 45 when playing those disks.

While i don't believe you'll ever get rid of all of the noise it can be reduced to an un-objectionable level. Check the motor mounts for excessive hardness and make sure there is a rubber plug support under the center of the motor, Make sure the motor itself is not touching anything on the mech casting or mech cover.

I have read comments that replacing the electrolytic caps in the speed unit also reduces noise. That is theoretically possible but I have never found it to matter.

An unrebuilt amp can make the noise more noticeable. This happens when the AGC circuit isn't reducing gain and all records just get squashed due to excessive gain and a form of compression results (as well as distortion). This tends to make the t-t noise more noticeable as any form of compression will do. On low-cut records the AGC would have no/little effect though.

I gotta hand it to you...bringing an LPC up stairs...whew....

Congrats. Now the "fun" begins.

Rob

Rob,
Whatz the big deal of bring an LPC up stairs ?? I have done that hundreds of times--no problem (course I used the freight elevator)!
Ron Rich

the stairs... i'll tell ya... if i had given myself any more time to come to my senses, i might not have done it. the back up plan was to simply wheel it in to my one-storey music studio across town, which has all kinds of heavy in it already.

but amazingly, my fiancee gave me the enthusiastic thumbs up after i showed her photos of the LPC. Living room approved! eventually we want to have a party in our living room and have everybody bring us 45's and who knows... maybe even mini-LP's! (two of my friends own record stores). now that it's there, it's only 'somewhat' imposing since i had it all spread eagle- wide open for toubleshooting, with the mech out on the floor in front.

after ordering a round of caps for the TCC and TSA, i'm giving it a break from the risk of poorly filtered power. i unplugged the modules and i put it back together and buttoned it all up until the caps arrive. now it actually looks quite at home and apropos of our simple living room. my fiancee likes the look and i set it up so she can turn it on and have the lights on.

Rob, if by "fun" you might mean "mystery", yes the fun has begun. all kinds of randomness. somewhere in the midst of it the other night, i was actually able to select two records using a quarter and it played exactly the two records i wanted, then scanned and stood by. i was damn happy after fiddling for a few late nights. "Maybe i'm done with the mechanicals", i said to my girl. she was amazed. but of course, it only happened once. then it went to pulling random selections, and then got stuck playing a phantom record and won't reject it. that's the first time i couldn't reject.

so... i'm gonna let 'er rest until i can get those fresh caps in. then i'll have all kinds of questions for you guys!