gotitforfree
Active Member
I came across a clean looking older MCS turntable yesterday, it was left behind by a tenant in a house my boss rents. (So was the rest of the system but most of the rest of the system was all black plastic late model junk).
I snagged the turntable and two crates full of albums and about 500 45's.
I brought the thing home, gave it a good cleaning, sprayed all the pots with some deoxid from the start and gave it a try. What I got was nothing but weak, garbled sound, it sounds like someone singing underwater or with a mouth full of cotton.
There was a spare stylus, so I went ahead and swapped that out but it made no difference. I then swapped out a complete cartridge from another turntable I had laying around and it made little difference. The only change with the cartridge change is that there's now a difference between the sound from a 45 and a 33 rpm record. The 33 rpm records will play but at a very low volume. 45 rpm, (7"), have more volume but sound all distorted or garbled. It also has issues tracking with on a 45, but seems fine on 12 inch records. I tried moving the counter weight up to increase the weight on the record but the tracking didn't improve.
What gets me is that the guy who left this behind was using it, it was set up as the only input to a black Pioneer surround sound receiver with an external phono preamp.
I did try the phono preamp through my aux jacks too but it does the same thing.
I removed the bottom of the turntable and I really don't see much in the sound path that could do what I'm hearing. The wiring seems to go right through the cartridge to the L&R cables to the amp. Both cables ohm out fine. The used cartridge I swapped in came from a turntable I gave up on after it had mechanical issues, but that was 10 year ago.
I was thinking about buying a new cartridge for the MCS and trying that but am not sure what to get?
The original has an Audio Technica logo on the front but no numbers I can see. The head shell is not detachable but the cartridge mounts with two vertical screws like most others.
I snagged the turntable and two crates full of albums and about 500 45's.
I brought the thing home, gave it a good cleaning, sprayed all the pots with some deoxid from the start and gave it a try. What I got was nothing but weak, garbled sound, it sounds like someone singing underwater or with a mouth full of cotton.
There was a spare stylus, so I went ahead and swapped that out but it made no difference. I then swapped out a complete cartridge from another turntable I had laying around and it made little difference. The only change with the cartridge change is that there's now a difference between the sound from a 45 and a 33 rpm record. The 33 rpm records will play but at a very low volume. 45 rpm, (7"), have more volume but sound all distorted or garbled. It also has issues tracking with on a 45, but seems fine on 12 inch records. I tried moving the counter weight up to increase the weight on the record but the tracking didn't improve.
What gets me is that the guy who left this behind was using it, it was set up as the only input to a black Pioneer surround sound receiver with an external phono preamp.
I did try the phono preamp through my aux jacks too but it does the same thing.
I removed the bottom of the turntable and I really don't see much in the sound path that could do what I'm hearing. The wiring seems to go right through the cartridge to the L&R cables to the amp. Both cables ohm out fine. The used cartridge I swapped in came from a turntable I gave up on after it had mechanical issues, but that was 10 year ago.
I was thinking about buying a new cartridge for the MCS and trying that but am not sure what to get?
The original has an Audio Technica logo on the front but no numbers I can see. The head shell is not detachable but the cartridge mounts with two vertical screws like most others.