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Fluance vs. AT Turntable (New Kid on The Block, vs. The Corner Kid)

hotrodman21 said:
Definitely a fantastic table, one of the better ones for its time!

So, let's roll through the equipment.

I'm rolling a 2M Red on the table currently, running to a brand new Ortofon headshell. (The original headshell's solder failed just the other day.) This pipes through brand new RCA cable leads put on by Gibson's. These plug into a TCC-750LC, as suggested by you folks.

This is where things get interesting, I have an RCA switchbox coming off of the preamp which can be switched to my receiver, which pumps out to multiple rooms at the flick of the channel switch, one switch that leads straight into my 16-Channel mixer, to record any signal coming off of it to my PC. (An ElectroVoice BK-1642 for those curious) Then, one more switch that leads into my headphone amp next to my listening room sofa. This runs into Marshall Monitor headphones, which runs to Me, in a Snuggie. But, that's beside the point. The receiver end, runs into a new Sony amp. Nothing special really, I need to track down a decent vintage one, and for Pioneer heritage reasons, the SX series looks pretty cool. Depending on which switch I run, it could also run out to the living room surround. Which I hand picked, with Edifier speakers, a Pioneer 4k receiver (For the TV surround) A hand built center speaker, made from plywood, and Pioneer Car speakers I found at a garage sale. (Sounds much better than you would think) A brand new Polk Powered Sub, and, I swap the wires between the Rear Surround, and the Sony receiver, as the speakers run a double duty depending on where I'm listening.

If that all makes sense. Let's move on.

The way it's aligned! I bought a digital scale, and the cartridge is running at exactly 2.8 Grams on the scale.I bought an alignment scale on Amazon, unfortunately, I couldn't tell you what system it's using... It appears aligned, but I don't know which scale to use from the fourms.

A point was brought up that I forgot completely. Anti-Skate.

So, my anti-skate worked about six months ago. Then, I believed it was wrong. So I messed with the little guy. It broke. This is when I had the entire auto-return mechanism restored. 200 dollars later, and she's home. Working anti-skate, but I am unable to turn it without breaking it, according to the technician so it has gone "un-messed-with" since, around February.

I believe one of the wires may be providing resistance within the deck, providing tension against the tonearm as it goes across the LP.


I know for sure the albums aren't damaged, as it does it with the brand new albums I purchased a week ago. (Bob Seger, Ride Out) Wrapped in shrink, new from Amazon.

As for the stylus being dirty, if there is any visable fuzz, or dust I gently blow it off before play. However, I don't believe this is a great method, I keep meaning to pick up a brush for it.


Hope all of this helps thanks for the fantastic responses everyone!
Click to expand...


Edit: I knew the a-s broke, as the stylus refused to play anything else than the run-on of an album, then it would skip back onto it immediatly.
 
Let's try a few things for starters.

First, let's simplify the signal path as much as possible.

The TCC 750LC is probably working just fine. I have the TCC 760LC which is very similar but also accomodates moving coil cartridges and it sounds excellent, though I power mine with batteries as there was a small hum from the wall wart. Does yours have cartridge load switches on the back?

Let's get rid of the source selecting switch at this point and just plug the TCC directly into the receiver, and hook up whatever you consider to be the best pair of speakers that you have, again, keeping things as simple as we can.

The 2M Red should be tracking at 1.8 grams, you're way too heavy right now. That's an elliptical stylus, so alignment will be critical, double check that since you're using a new headshell.

Give that a whirl and see what happens as a first step, and then go from there.

It sounds as if that antiskate is causing more problems than it's solving. I'm highly suspect of the technician telling you not to touch it, and lord knows what it's actually set at, if it even functions properly. Gibsons more than likely is encouraging you to buy a new one for two reasons...one, if they sell it to you, they get your money, and two, they're sick of seeing your old Pioneer. There are very few brick and mortars these days that actually know diddly about turntables...you're better off finding an AK member who's accredited by other members as an expert on your brand to work on it. If the Pioneer were mine, I'd disable the antiskate altogether and make a 'fish-weight' style antiskate out of some stiff musical instrument wire, like a .020 electric guitar string (not nickel-wound), some monofilament line and sinkers. To calibrate it, you'd need a hard-to-find blank-sided record or have one made out of plexiglass, and adjust the weights until the arm neither skates inward or outward.

If you want to give up on the Pioneer altogether for the moment, then I would suggest finding another vintage table rather than buy new. If you do wish to buy new, I would consider some different models, as neither the Fluance nor the AT have the best Wow and Flutter specs. Think of that spec in this way; a song ends with a big, long piano note that holds forever. If the wow and flutter spec isn't great, you could hear that note waver a little, which is annoying. Both of those decks weigh in at 0.2%. You should aim for 0.1 or less at the very least, I would suggest. Your PL-50 weighs in at 0.08, for instance, so apart from possibly getting rid of the distortion, either of those new decks is a downgrade in that department.

For just plain stupid simplicity, great specs and easily obtainable good sound, I would recommend one of the early 80's Technics P-mount direct drive turntables. They're plentiful, cheap, reliable and sound great. Starting out, you can slap a $30 Audio Technica cartridge on them and eventually upgrade the stylus if you so desire with a LP-Gear vivid line. You could easily make this happen for under $100.
 
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1) VTF < 2.0g
2) Determine your pivot to spindle distance and generate / print out a "Stevenson A" (for the least possible tracking error on the inner grooves) arc protractor with this program: http://conradhoffman.com/TemplateGen.zip
3) Get a stylus brush, and perhaps read up on using Magic Eraser as a cleaner, since if all you're doing is blowing on it then there is likely quite a bit of gunk build-up. Brush the stylus after each side, or at least between albums.

If there are still issues, we can then move on, but these are the basics.
 
hotrodman21 said:
I knew the a-s broke, as the stylus refused to play anything else than the run-on of an album, then it would skip back onto it immediatly.
Click to expand...

What you're describing is actually the "end game" of a broken antiskate on that model. For reasons I don't understand [perhaps the broken pieces shift?], the situation tends to worsen with usage, ending up with the tonearm behaving as you describe, completely unusable. However, there are degrees to which the problem can affect tonearm movement prior to that, often starting as horrible tracking with no skipping.

In short, I suspect the antiskate was actually malfunctioning before it finally jammed up entirely.....and despite the "fix" is likely still malfunctioning given that similar symptoms persist.

DustyOldPile said:
I'm highly suspect of the technician telling you not to touch it, and lord knows what it's actually set at, if it even functions properly.
Click to expand...

Exactly. As far as I know, that plastic bit is not available unless you find one in a parts table. Chances are your tech simply epoxied the pieces together and hooked it back up, however.

And I also agree with DustyOldPile in that a better fix would be to remove the antiskate spring altogether, thus, essentially converting it to the PL 41 arm. I've never tried to do this, but I'd be surprised if it's impossible.

I'm an antiskate skeptic. I personally wouldn't bother with rigging a replacement. Three out of six of my tables don't have antiskate. A fourth has the antiskate almost completely turned down because, imo, the factory set-up tends to overcompensate. A fifth has the antiskate turned off because the cartridge manufacturer recommends no antiskate for the cartridge I'm using. The sixth, is on the bench because it has a somewhat similar "broken spring" antiskate problem.
 
45rpmspinner said:
What you're describing is actually the "end game" of a broken antiskate on that model. For reasons I don't understand [perhaps the broken pieces shift?], the situation tends to worsen with usage, ending up with the tonearm behaving as you describe, completely unusable. However, there are degrees to which the problem can affect tonearm movement prior to that, often starting as horrible tracking with no skipping.

In short, I suspect the antiskate was actually malfunctioning before it finally jammed up entirely.....and despite the "fix" is likely still malfunctioning given that similar symptoms persist.



Exactly. As far as I know, that plastic bit is not available unless you find one in a parts table. Chances are your tech simply epoxied the pieces together and hooked it back up, however.

And I also agree with DustyOldPile in that a better fix would be to remove the antiskate spring altogether, thus, essentially converting it to the PL 41 arm. I've never tried to do this, but I'd be surprised if it's impossible.

I'm an antiskate skeptic. I personally wouldn't bother with rigging a replacement. Three out of six of my tables don't have antiskate. A fourth has the antiskate almost completely turned down because, imo, the factory set-up tends to overcompensate. A fifth has the antiskate turned off because the cartridge manufacturer recommends no antiskate for the cartridge I'm using. The sixth, is on the bench because it has a somewhat similar "broken spring" antiskate problem.
Click to expand...
You know, the more we speak of it, the more I believe the technician may have BS-ed me as you guys speak of. I figured the mechanism out myself, and tried to post here, in vein, in desperation to get the old gal working, as that was the height of the hobby for me, right after I got the 2M Red. She had never sounded better.

In my investigations, I honestly couldn't figure out how in the world he could have gotten to the mechanism. The metal platform above the wooden plinth is completely solid, and only gave about half an inch of clearance before the dial, and the metal attached to it got in the way of any work. For the life of me, I don't know how he could've possibly gotten in to work on it.

In my messing about before calling them, I noticed the anti-skate when turned the correct way, would end up spitting out, what looked like, half of a gear. It would slowly squeeze itself out as I turned, finally giving from tension, hitting the metal platform, and the dial would turn freely.

I do believe this is the issue, as, according to y'all, I've done everything else I could since Junior year of high school, so, four years ago (oh god.)

I only recently built the switchbox, as it was suddenly a bit inconvenient to swap the cables. Unfortunately, this has always been a persistent problem with the table. With these statements I've been reading on this post, this is the only thing I can really think of that has always been there.


This being said, as much as it pains me to ask, as it absolutely terrifies me to think about breaking again, (this is my gal anyways) how would I go about this "fishing line method?"

I do ask for as much detail as possible, as I said, it terrifies me to think about my old gal not working again.
 
45rpmspinner said:
What you're describing is actually the "end game" of a broken antiskate on that model. For reasons I don't understand [perhaps the broken pieces shift?], the situation tends to worsen with usage, ending up with the tonearm behaving as you describe, completely unusable. However, there are degrees to which the problem can affect tonearm movement prior to that, often starting as horrible tracking with no skipping.

In short, I suspect the antiskate was actually malfunctioning before it finally jammed up entirely.....and despite the "fix" is likely still malfunctioning given that similar symptoms persist.



Exactly. As far as I know, that plastic bit is not available unless you find one in a parts table. Chances are your tech simply epoxied the pieces together and hooked it back up, however.

And I also agree with DustyOldPile in that a better fix would be to remove the antiskate spring altogether, thus, essentially converting it to the PL 41 arm. I've never tried to do this, but I'd be surprised if it's impossible.

I'm an antiskate skeptic. I personally wouldn't bother with rigging a replacement. Three out of six of my tables don't have antiskate. A fourth has the antiskate almost completely turned down because, imo, the factory set-up tends to overcompensate. A fifth has the antiskate turned off because the cartridge manufacturer recommends no antiskate for the cartridge I'm using. The sixth, is on the bench because it has a somewhat similar "broken spring" antiskate problem.
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Or, alternatively, how would I go about disabling it entirely, as "45rpmspinner" has stated? Wouldn't that send me into the same hellish loop as before with the run-on?
 
Before mucking around with the anti-skate or anything else, stop tracking at 1 gram heavier than recommended (and 0.8g over the maximum) and clean your stylus.
 
tw1st said:
Before mucking around with the anti-skate or anything else, stop tracking at 1 gram heavier than recommended (and 0.8g over the maximum) and clean your stylus.
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You got it!

I shall order the brush immediately. Thanks for pointing that out before I did anything brash.
 
The brush will be helpful for maintenance, but may not be enough depending on the current state of your stylus. See this thread of mine a few months back:

http://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/stylus-gunk-removal.785512/

While I don't recommend this approach, it is a good example of a stylus that not even Magic Eraser and elbow grease could clean.

I assume you don't have any means to magnify and inspect the stylus - to the naked eye, does it look anything like that?

In that thread, a few users mentioned a liquid stylus cleaner. If the brush you ordered comes with a solution, that may do the trick.
 
Lots of tables didn't even have anti-skate, so I would start by figuring out a way to just disable it. If that solves your issues, then it's up to you if you want to investigate a DIY solution. Frankly, the old string and weight solution works better than 90% of the 'turn the dial' ones.
 
I use Magic Eraser. Works well and it's cheap and readily available even in small towns in the middle of God-knows-where.
 
tw1st said:
The brush will be helpful for maintenance, but may not be enough depending on the current state of your stylus. See this thread of mine a few months back:

http://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/stylus-gunk-removal.785512/

While I don't recommend this approach, it is a good example of a stylus that not even Magic Eraser and elbow grease could clean.

I assume you don't have any means to magnify and inspect the stylus - to the naked eye, does it look anything like that?

In that thread, a few users mentioned a liquid stylus cleaner. If the brush you ordered comes with a solution, that may do the trick.
Click to expand...
Nah, it was just a stock cart from the factory. I believe it came with a stylus brush actually! I just seem to have misplaced it! In fact, I had forgotten about it completely. I'm quite glad you mentioned about packaging a stylus cleaning solution with the cart. May have just saved me twenty bucks! :)

The closest magnification method I have is a simple magnifying glass. I'll have a look when I get home how it looks, I never thought gunk could build up like that, I only saw fuzz, and occasional dust, but, according to your post you linked, it's a bit more severe than that.
 
Yes, THAT Magic Eraser. You cut a small square of it off, and do NOT scrub with it. Instead, just set it below your raised arm and gently lower and raise the needle in and out of the magic eraser several times. That should do it.
 
Also they sell cheap magnifiers on Amazon for under 10 bucks. It's not exactly the kind they used to use in stereo boutiques to check for stylus wear, but is great for determining if the stylus is dirty, bent, if the cantilever is cracked, etc.
 
DustyOldPile said:
Yes, THAT Magic Eraser. You cut a small square of it off, and do NOT scrub with it. Instead, just set it below your raised arm and gently lower and raise the needle in and out of the magic eraser several times. That should do it.
Click to expand...
Holy cow! I wish I had known this much sooner! I never realized how dirty the stylus can get, and I would've cleaned it immediately if I had known I could pick up the solution at work! That's awesome!
 
DustyOldPile said:
Also they sell cheap magnifiers on Amazon for under 10 bucks. It's not exactly the kind they used to use in stereo boutiques to check for stylus wear, but is great for determining if the stylus is dirty, bent, if the cantilever is cracked, etc.
Click to expand...
Well, I just happen to have one of those too! Y'all are saving me stacks of money today! :cool:
(Including the admission price for an entirely new deck...)

Now, about that "wire method?" Any good links floating around for that? As I have no idea where to start there.
 
The experience of narrowing down the distortion is worth more than anything., and what is lost in some of todays newcomers, if you have not yet searched things like VTA by a simple shimming , and also check all adjustments available to cart alignment. it can be fixed , we have all taken that road. research , learn , clean records, dirty needle, inner groove distortion, anti skate , this is owning a turntable, good results will be a great feeling. there is a problem you have not improved yet. even if you get a new table, improve the pioneer, The AT table has ALL the adjustments needed for getting your best sound and can take a lot of abuse. Look a little deeper when comparing the 2 tables.
 
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