magnavox micromatic turntable - new records keep skipping

Ya know,

I think it's what floats your boat. Maybe someone doesn't have a "top of the line" console, but these things have a nice sound when they're restored properly. Some folks may not like that boomy, big-box sound from the beasts, but I kinda like it my self.

Had a good day so far, went to church and tore up that Hammond B3, came home and threw on a bunch of albums from Carol King, James Taylor, Michael Jackson, O Jays, Jimmy Smith, Jimmy McGriff, and a bunch of Motown, even some Johnny Cash and Strauss Rosenkavalier waltzes. All the genres of music sound good on these big old boxes. That "low-boy" Santiago with 15" woofers and horns really kicks butt.



I love repairing these old relics, and freely give them away to friends and co-workers, maybe charging for a new cartridge. Needles are cheap if you know where to look. I don't part with the Maggies, though. They are near and dear to me. So many brands out there...RCA, Montgomery Ward, Sears, Ward, Curtis-Mathis, which I was told was made from some left-over RCA parts, Zenith, etc.

Back in the day, don't buy a Hammond organ that was made in the mid-late 70's. Those things were thrown together from left-over parts when they rolled off the assembly line. They are truly problematic and that's when the transistorized units were coming into play. The original tonewheel generator is a thing of the past...(think about running your wet finger around a wine glass and hear the tone that it produces).

Damn, I meant to hit the thrift store today after church, but I don't need any more stuff right now. The house is bulging with consoles. I may have to part with some stuff (You Tucscon folks look me up). Not looking to make big bucks and retire early, but some things just need to go. I've also got some extra reel-to-reel tape recorders and turntables. Stuff I've accumulated but haven't bothered to repair. Maybe just replacing a few belts on those.

There is just too much stuff here, and it needs to go, most, if not all for free. However, they do require some repairs. Things I've accumulated for next to nothing and haven't bothered to repair them.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. HAVE YOU LAUGHED TODAY? --BB



Bobby Basham
Tucson, Arizona
(rwbasham@yahoo.com)

1

Bobby, Good to see you made it to church today...my family also attended as we do every Sunday. I'm curious about your Santiago, what does that measure in Length? it looks long....also curious what year it was produced and what is the speaker conig.? I'm thinking that beast would look good with one of my Back in BLACK treatments and also did you have an opionon in the 3 models I posted that are for sale in my area? If the console I have is low end with cheap/budget components what do the majority of you think sounds real good?

Bobby,

I love seeing pictures of that Santiago. It's a beauty! How much does that thing weigh? I had to haul my RCA victrola console up to the second floor, and these things are BEASTLY! It's easily 250lbs and looks about half the size of that santiago...Lol.

I love that Santiago, and wish I could have grabbed the one I found, but it was too modded out for me, plastic turntable and base slapped into the Micromatic space, and some other two sound pieces wired in, I have no technical expertise, and little patience. Something has to work if it comes here, or if it is something I've been searching for awhile, it makes no difference.

I just grabbed this French Provincial 500 from 1970, at our local St. Vincent de Paul, it was transferred to a prominent spot while I was wrapping up the transaction. When we picked it up a couple of hours later from the stockroom, the saleslady said it got quite a bit of attention while it was still on the sales floor. She could have sold it for the original $100, I got it for $50 w/o tax, because furniture was half price that day. Outside of minor control scratch and a loose cartridge screw, she seems to be a solid performer. Best $50 I've spent lately!

It's likely that these new records are cut so hot your Magnavox's cartridge and tonearm can't track them. These old consoles were made for average records cut at average modulation levels. These new audiophile records don't have the bass heavily filtered out and volume levels lowered to earlier levels. They're aimed at high end audiophiles with better than average manual turntables, tonearms, and cartridge systems. I like the better old consoles, the Magnavox classics were nicer than average. But the old consoles have their limitations tracking loudly mastered records.

I have two things for you:

1. If the changer is not cycling, it is possible that it is partly in cycle (if the drive wheel screws are loose). This could put extra friction on the pickup arm.

2. Moving it in a truck for many miles might have vibrated some of the adjustments (such as tracking force).

Well, theres no doubt about it.... Records just arn't made the way they use to be. If your old records are still playing perfectly(and not skipping)
then it could be the quality of the newer records you purchased. If it is skipping with every record you are playing, then it is possible that you may
need a new needle, which you can find on ebay,

The Santiago is about 65" inches long, but if you ever come accross a Francisco Astro-Sonic 100, scoop it up in a hurry. I only paid $25 for the Santiago, and got the Francisco for free. The Santiago is fully functional, inspite of some rumbling/feedback issues from all the bass. The Francisco is beautiful, but needs a complete recapping and other TLC. These two units date from 1966 and they weren't cheap back in the day...$595 and $650 respectively, and that didn't include the optional drop-in reel-to reel deck for about another $250. --BB

Bobby Basham
Tucson, Arizona

I inherited a beautiful old (early-to-mid '60s) Magnavox AM/FM/PHONO stereo console. Everything worked and sounded great, but the phono stylus/cartridge was severely damaged. Rather than try to repair it, I decided to drop in the cheapest turntable I could find that would fit and start playing some old vinyl. An Audio Technica AT-LP60-USB fits perfectly and allows me to digitize any tracks to my computer. If I like the console setup, I'll probably upgrade to a more expensive turntable later.

Here's my problem: When I disconnected the original Micromatic turntable from its power connector (red, black, yellow) and selected "PHONO" on the console, the amplifier circuit would not fire up. Thus, no sound from the new turntable. I reconnected the old turntable while the new one was connected to the speaker leads and got sound. It wasn't good sound, because I was just holding the bare wires to the Audio Technica's RCA plugs, but it was enough to tell me this will work.

So, how do I get the phono amplifier circuit to come on without hooking up the old turntable? I was thinking about installing a receptacle on the red/black wires in place of the connector, then plugging the AT-LP60 into that, but I read 125v there and I'm not sure that will solve my problem anyway.

Any thoughts? I'm far from an electronics expert - not even a competent hobbiest, so I'd rather not go tearing into the amplifier itself.

Thanks.

You'll need a competent tech to perform the needed modifications.
Including the addition of an RIAA preamplifer.

"tharkey" you have noticed that the turntable controls AC fed to the receiver section when the switch is set to "phono".

here is a link to the schematic of my 1965 Magnavox console.

http://s1192.photobucket.com/albums/aa3 ... 99871c.jpg

The area of interest here is the lower left side of the print. There are just three wires involved here. One is the AC input to the switch on the underside of the changer. The middle one (usually) is the return from that switch powers the receiver and motor. And the last is the AC return for just the changer motor.

On this schematic you would simply jump the top two wires to keep the receiver powered.


If you have a multimeter for continuity test this will be easy to trace out.

One point here; I recommend putting a light bulb in series with the main power cord.(100W is fine). Reason being that if you jump the two wrong wires it will put a dead short across the power line. With the bulb in series all that will happen is that it will glow full-on, instead of dimly.

You might also take a look at this post from several months back:

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=5044

The turntable you bought has it's own preamp so it can also be connected to the "tape" or "Aux" input on the receiver. That would eliminate the need to mod the internal turntable wiring. For some reason Magnavox hid those inputs inside the cabinet one the receiver chassis itself. If present, they are RCA plugs.

Rob-NYC

Why swap out a working changer because of a faulty cartridge? That's like getting rid of a car because of a dead battery or flat tire. Those record changers wear like iron and, with a little TLC, could easily last another 40-plus years.

If you are positive that it has a faulty cartridge, then do some online searching. Cartridges and needles are out there. I, personally, would try to keep the thing intact. For that period, those turntables were pretty decent.

For the price of finding the cheapest turntable to drop into your unit, you could have found a nice replacement cartridge (maybe New Old Stock) and keep your unit true to original.

Please, I'm not fussing, but I have an issue with folks that drop in new turntables, preamps for magnetic cartridges and other tweaking and add-ons, taking away from the way the unit was supposed to operate in its original condition. Magnetic cartridges are sensitive, and can't imagine a turntable sitting inches above a 12- or 15-inch woofer honking away.

Those Maggie techs knew what they were doing, and they matched all the internal components to work in harmony, including acoustics, damping factor...the list goes on to create an awesome sounding console.

Then again, some people buy these consoles to gut and make a wine cabinet or hold an acquarium, whatever, with total disregard with what was in the unit.

If it works for you, then so be it. But, don't let others hear it thinking that it sounded that way back in the early/mid-60's. They may run out and buy one at a thrift store or an estate sale and be disappointed. --BB

Bobby Basham
Tucson, Arizona

Bobby, I agree with your basic sentiment here, but there are some things to consider.

If the original TT has the curved plastic arm essentially any pickup designed for changer use can be fitted. The later metal arm is non-standard and here is the problem; the original ceramic carts were made by (IRRC) Tetrad and later, rebranded and offered by several other companies. New ones have not been made in over 20 year now and it's a crapshoot as to whether any for sale now would be still be good.

The issue of originality is one of those things that I personally weigh against contemporary expectations.

When I bought a 1965 Magnavox in Jan 1990 (spur of the moment) it needed quite a bit of work though it was very good cosmetically.

I rebuilt and aligned the receiver added a ceramic filter to the FM-IF to improve selectivity and tested the overall performance of the electronics, especially the tone amp section.

The changer was washed, lubed and set up for testing. It had the black tonearm and original cart which was dead on one channel and weak on the other. I had an NOS original replacement and put that in, set the tracking force to 3 grams and reassembled the machine.

The phono section sounded "ok' but there was always some distortion on certain loud records. Others here didn't really notice it so I left as-is.

Two years later that NOS cart was going bad so I modded it with a Pickering DAT-2 magnetic and added a preamp I built. At this point the machine represented what I considered the best compromise between originality and a sound that was more inline with modern expectations and to me, more pleasurable.

Your suspicions about bass feedback were correct. Magnavox handled this by limiting the deep bass with a lower input impedance on the phono cart. Once the mag and pre were installed the bass was much more detailed and pronounced (through I use it w/bass set at the second position). Feedback was a problem till I put a small choke coil across the preamp output. This made the sound mono at frequencies below about 200hz solving the feedback problem.

The deluxe models that you have are equipped with separate chambers for the woofers and might not have this problem.

Again, it is a matter of expectations. the average home has vastly superior sound reproduction available at relatively low cost compared to the 40+ years ago when these consoles were built. The phono section was always the weakest link in mass-market equipment. A little effort here can bring these old sets new life.

Rob/NYC

Thanks Rob and Bobby for your responses. I still have the original Micromatic turntable and as I said, it does appear to spin and cycle normally. However, the cartridge will have to be replaced. Morevover, the receptacle that holds it to the tone arm will need to be re-wired. I would like to restore it but I am not sure I have the skills or eyesight to take that on. Rest assured, if I can't fix it myself (with help from Phonoland) I will find a good home for it.

In the meantime, I just wanted to listen to the old LPs I found in the cabinet and hear them through the original Magnavox amplifier and speakers. The AM/FM tuner works great and sounds wonderful. It was very easy to take out the old turntable and drop in the new one without doing anything else to the wiring or the beautiful cabinetry. I will take some pics when I get home and post them here.

I got pretty decent sound by just holding the speaker wires against the RCA plugs from the new turntable, so I don't think I need a pre-amp.

Rob, I didn't notice the AUX input jacks you mentioned inside the cabinet but I believe the mode selector did have an AUX function, so I will look again. Do you recall where they were in your unit?

As an alternative to shorting the power leads, what do you think of wiring in a standard 3-prong power receptacle to the same wires, grounding it to the chassis, and plugging in the new turntable there?