Sears Silvertone Hi Fi problem

Yes it does have a light. If you look at the pics on the first post of this thread u will see it. Its an orange light in a window that I believe is a strobe of some sort. While the turntable is spinning it shines on three rows of dots. I thought this had something to do with finding the correct speed. I have seen guitar tuners that use a strobe light to tune the strings based on their vibration instead of their pitch. I thought this may be the same principle. If not I have no clue what the purpose of the light and the window serve. But just by playing with the knob it does seem to work like a dimmer switch. So your guess about the knob controlling the speed of the motor seems to be a darn good guess, but I really dont know. I was hoping someone on here would though.

No.... I'm not on any "vacation".

But that changer "(most likely a "Crescent" brand made for Sears) needs to, as I've suggested many times on here..... go to a repair shop where knowledgeable people can work on it.... instead of putzing around on here playing endless "what is it" games.

"the blind leading the blind"

I agree with Matt. I have fixed many turntables but not seeing the unit in person or having a parts list of the unit makes it hard to fig out what is going on with it.

The Changer was made by Crescent and the model with the variable pitch/strobe was used in their upper line consoles from '66 to '69.
I have serviced several of these and cleaning the adjustment pot usually solved any speed problems, as long as the two tiered idler was in good
condition and the motor properly oiled.
You want to turn the adjustment knob until the dots appear stationary. The three sets of dots are for 33, 45 and 78.
This is a very good performing changer when all is serviced properly.

orthophonic wrote:The Changer was made by Crescent and the model with the variable pitch/strobe was used in their upper line consoles from '66 to '69.
I have serviced several of these and cleaning the adjustment pot usually solved any speed problems, as long as the two tiered idler was in good
condition and the motor properly oiled.
You want to turn the adjustment knob until the dots appear stationary. The three sets of dots are for 33, 45 and 78.
This is a very good performing changer when all is serviced properly.

Keyword... properly.

Well, I found a place in town today that said they could fix it. I dropped it off and hopefully the guy knows what he is doing. He seemed to be a hoarder of all types of electronics so maybe he has the experience needed to get the job done. It kinda scared me though because after he took a look at it he just set it on the floor amongst the rest of what looked to me to be "junk". I know I shouldnt judge a book by its cover but by the looks of his shop he might not fix as much as he breaks. Im just going to keep my fingers crossed. I will let yall know what was wrong with it when he gets it back to me.

Thanks, Orthophonic for clearing that up. We were on the right track about cleaning the adjustable pot. Of course, it wouldn't hurt to have the rest of the turntable properly serviced while it's out of the cabinet.

I don't know where everyone lives, but it's a luxury if you can find someone LOCALLY to work on these things and not pay a gazillion bucks to have it shipped back and forth, plus parts and labor. A little help here from our Board Friends can help keep the expense down.

You all know how the economy is nowadays. Other than the For Sale forum, we're not here to make a profit, it's just good to be able to share the knowledge/experiences with each other and keep our old beasts roaring like back in the day. What a good feeling. I just hope the original poster doesn't get charged big bucks just for spraying the pot and some cleaning/oiling/lube here and there. If you're a newbie who just acquired a recordplayer and are clueless and have issues, not mechanically/electronically inclined, then please get it to someone to have it properly serviced.

As I said before, many of us can do our own repairs and maintenance, with a little guidance. We are not "yakking up the wrong tree", and it's not the "blind leading the blind". We may not be certified techs, but some of us are pretty good with a soldering gun, scope, meter, reading schematics, etc., and can navigate pretty good with challenges we encounter. It's just a love for the hobby, NOT a profession.

I'm not a tech, but all the consoles I give away to my friends and coworkers work wonderfully. Cap job, occasional resistor here and there, checking bias and voltages, new stylus, maybe an occasional new cartridge. --BB

YAY for these old Units!!!

Bobby Basham
Tucson, Arizona

I agree with you BB. I am not a turntable buff in the sense that I love to work on them or have owned many in my lifetime, but over the last 8 years I have become partial to them because of the vast record collection I have acquired. They dont play the music that I listen to on the radio, and sometimes its hard finding what I like on CD, but give me a few hours in a recorded store and I will always find something I cant leave the store without. With that said, you can understand my need for a turntable. I think its awesome to have a forum like this to bounce ideas around and see what people can come up with. Even if Im not fixing the turntable myself this time I now have a better understanding of how my machine works and where I can come to find some answers if I need them. Thank you all for your input on this matter and pointing me in the right direction. I had a good idea of what was going wrong but no idea where to begin to fix it (other than contacting sears). And just to get yalls opinion because I have never had one of my turntables serviced, is $45 a bad price for an overhaul? I told the man the problem I was having and that I wanted everything checked to have it running in tip top shape and he told me it shouldnt be more $45. Am I getting screwed?

Just my humble opinion--I do not work on them--$45.00 is a real good deal !
Ron Rich

Ron Rich wrote:Just my humble opinion--I do not work on them--$45.00 is a real good deal !
Ron Rich

$45 is a good price indeed.
I charge that for a basic overhaul on most changers, extra if it needs rubber idlers, cartridges, wiring, etc.

Same here no way am I in the service filed. Should be but not something I would want to do all the time. I have fixed a freaking lot of nasty bsr tables. lol Not my thing but I know my way around them like a kid at the candy stand. now my Magnavox has been a new thing to learn. There not that hard to fix but they can be picky, This table was never used or used a little. Fun part was re greasing it and oiling and checking the arm gram weight.

Hard part finding the freaking cartage. 5606d this thing about got to me. After getting a new old stock I found out I could have saved the other one. It is glued the metal tab to hold the needle in place. So this deck from setting unused for years the glue gave out. If anyone ever ask the gram weight by the factory book is 3 and 1/2 gram. Mine was set to about 1 gram and still had a sticker on to set weight before first use.



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I have a TASCAM CC222 mkII dual deck machine. Ignore the cassette deck above it. It will dub from Cassette to CD or vise versa with adjustable level for a hotter signal transfer, and the cassette portion also has a pitch control. Plus, it will record directly to either portion from ANY external source, plus dedicated inputs to record directly from a turntable to the cassette or cd.

They will also play independently if you have two external amps and sets of speakers. Kinda interesting, routing the tape deck to one amp and speakers in one room, while routing the cd part to another amp and speakers in a second room. I got it from the Musician's Friend catalog for about $800.00 a few years back. --BB

Bobby Basham
Tucson, Arizona

I bought a piece of equipment a couple of years ago from bed,bath, and beyond of all places that was a turner,turntable, cassette, and mp3 all in one. The cool thing about it was u could use any of these mediums and make a CD. I mainly bought it to put some of my records that I cant find on CD on to CD. The odd thing though is when you transfer your record to CD it looses most of the low end of the recording. It comes out sounding all trebly. I wish I had it around so I could give you the make and model of the machine, but I recently moved and it is still at the old home.

Most turntables in the 1960s did not have electronic speed control. Most of them had no speed control other than the power line frequency.

The ones that did have speed controls had mechanical ones. Most of these had tapered steps on the motor shaft, and the speed control moved the idler wheel up and down on the tapered step.

If the turntable has a 2-pole induction motor, the turntable will be slightly fast for the first record, and slightly slow for the full stack on the turntable.