An old friend is starting to struggle...

[cwall99]

So I got my new copy of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers' Moanin' LP in the mail this morning. Dropped it on my trusty, old (hey, I bought it in the spring of 1981) Philips AF-829, and wow!!! Sounds great!

Five minutes into the first track, and I get nailed with that 60 Hz tone.... No problem. I'll just tweak the grounding wire like I've been doing for decades. Great.

Two minutes later, the 60 Hz tone is back. I tapped the grounding wire again, and all is well.

Only now, that's happening about every two minutes. Before it might be every three or four months so it never really bothered me all that much.

Mind you, nothing has changed about the turntable. I haven't re-positioned it or anything in months, but now I'm afraid that this grounding wire thing is getting out of hand.

I'm thinking that it's time to replace the interconnects and grounding wire, or at least the grounding wire.

Only, well, I've never soldered anything before and this looks like a particularly delicate bit of soldering that needs to be done seeing as the interconnects and the grounding wire are on this tiny circuit board. Seriously, it's like a quarter inch by a quarter inch, and there's just a tiny bit of solder holding the turntable ends of the wires to the circuit board (there's a double ess thing that the wires pass through on their way out of the plinth, and that prevents those soldered joints from feeling any stress).

So now I figure it'd be best for me to try and fix this by digging up an electronics repair place in SE Michigan. I'm in Troy, so if anyone can attest to the quality or ability of the work done by that place down on 14 Mile Road, just east of John R, I figure that'd be the place to take it.

Unless you have a better idea. I don't mind traveling as far as Ann Arbor (give or take 60 miles) if you can recommend someone else (someone better?).

I called the guys at Audio Dimensions and they suspect that the fault lies in the grounding strap too. Just wondering if you guys can shed a little light on this for me.

Thanks.

 

[cwall99]

Never mind. Turns out that it was, as they say in the computer help desk business, a keyboard - chair interface problem. I was just being a dork.

Everything seems to be running just fine now that I re-did the ground strap.

 

[Blue Shadow]

Always good to read about an AF Philips table doing well.

 

[bob06]

After decades the ground wire is fixed.

 

[beatcomber]

Great album!

 

[cwall99]

Always good to read about an AF Philips table doing well.

last year, I switched from using a Shure M97 Xe to a Grado black. It's a bit brighter. Or perhaps it's more articulate. Not sure. I'm not a hifi reviewer.

They offered to replace the cartridge for me, so I let 'em. While they had it, they also checked its speed using a strobe. Turns out it was dead on! The strobe patterns were rock steady.

Funny thing is that I have the original belt on it.

Very early in its life, like about two and a half years after I bought it, it was the turntable we opted for in our dorm room (I went to a small, midwestern college - no, this is not the opening to a Penthouse Forum letter - where, unless our families lived in town, we had to live on campus.... but I digress). Anyhow, my roommate and I had a loft and the stereo was set up under the loft. We used to flip the ladder back and forth to each other to get down.

One morning, my roommate was flipping the ladder over to me and, owing to the ladder's short stature, it missed my side of the loft and smashed into my turntable. The dust cover took the brunt of it, and while I still have it, it's now missing a big chunk around one of the hinges. In other words, it's not usable as a hinged dust cover.

Other than that, it keeps on soldierin' on. Every time I get some new audio porn, like a Music Direct or Audio Advisor catalog, I want to buy a new table. But with a perfectly functional, swell-sounding turntable, I can't justify the cost.

 

[cwall99]

After decades the ground wire is fixed.

LOL!!! When all it takes is a quick tap on the wire, it's hard for me to muster up the energy needed to get it fixed. Yes, I have to get things fixed. When it comes to fixing things myself, I completely lack opposable thumbs.

 

[cwall99]

Great album!

Man, you are so right on that!!!! The first track alone, Moanin' is worth the price of the album. But you're absolutely right on. Some great dynamics in that album. Very detailed recording. I love it when you can hear the drum stick hitting the cymbals.

 

[Blue Shadow]

No glue in that small town to put the dust cover back together...I know the hinge piece sought its freedom years later and got lost so glue wasn't an option or just like the ground wire, if it can be used without too much work, don't do extra work. I'm ok with that. Without a mechanical shift of the belt for speed like on a Thorens an original belt can last decades. I have one for a 1982 table that provides totally accurate speed once the platter gets a push start (or you wait a few revolutions) and you don't change the speed which causes it to drop off the platter/pulley it is so old and tired. Keeping it cause it works but it has reached retirement age and is a spare now.

 

[beatcomber]

Very detailed recording. I love it when you can hear the drum stick hitting the cymbals.

...without causing mistracking!

 

[cwall99]

No glue in that small town to put the dust cover back together...I know the hinge piece sought its freedom years later and got lost so glue wasn't an option or just like the ground wire, if it can be used without too much work, don't do extra work. I'm ok with that. Without a mechanical shift of the belt for speed like on a Thorens an original belt can last decades. I have one for a 1982 table that provides totally accurate speed once the platter gets a push start (or you wait a few revolutions) and you don't change the speed which causes it to drop off the platter/pulley it is so old and tired. Keeping it cause it works but it has reached retirement age and is a spare now.

That's good advice. Well, we did try gluing it back in college, but, over the years, the glue gave out. I had re-done the glue a few times, but, really, and maybe I was just using the wrong glue, but the dust cover never again had its original rigidity or integrity. I still have about 95% of the dust cover, and should use it like so many dust covers for modern tables: where you simply place the dust cover over the table when it's not in use.

Yeah, it's surprising how well that belt has held up. I only have a few 45s, and they're mainly audiophile 12-inch disks like Hugh Masekela's Hope or the MoFi 45 of Elvis Costello's Get Happy (from MoFi).

There's certainly something to be said for keeping a table that's reached retirement age. I'm reluctant to get a table right now (there are lots I'd love to get; being from Detroit, I'm kinda partial to that Shinola table, but I'm reluctant to buy a table from someone who also makes bikes, watches, leather goods, and luggage).

I bought my son an Orbit Uturn, and it's been entirely satisfactory for him. I'd like to move up to a table, though, that makes it worthwhile ordering a higher end cartridge for. Not enough places around where I can go to demo actual tables. Maybe I'm too old school, but the notion of ordering a table online, getting it in the mail, and then spending all the time needed to set it up only to discover that I don't really feel like I made much of an upgrade seems like an odd way to do business.

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[cwall99]

...without causing mistracking!

That's one of the things I liked about that Shure M97 xE cartridge. When you had the brush down, it never mistracked.

Actually, I haven't had any tracking issues with my new Grado either.