Old-School
Well-Known Member
Yes its official. I hate turntables. I hate them. I hate them with a passion.
All hail the CD. Besides the wheel and electricity its mans greatest invention.
Thats why I have been listening to them for 3 decades.
The only one worth owning is Technics SL. Cause it just works and you dont have to spend half your life screwing with it and tons of money to make it run. No wonder they are so popular.
Years ago I fought my original turntable trying to get that POS to run again. Never did get it fixed. A BIC belt drive 960. It had been in storage for many years. It had the seized platter syndrome. It took months of soaking that thing in every kind of penetrating oil I could find, and a colossal effort just to get the platter off. Bent the cheesy stamped sheet metal spindle mount in the process.
Tedious little screws. Weird plastic cams. Tiny wires. NO INFORMATION on how it comes apart or how to fix it. New belt. New o rings. New bearings. Stripped out pulley repaired. Capacitor replaced. New cart. Finally got it running after MONTHS of work and it sounded like an acoustic fun house. All kinds of speed variation. Was it the belt? The motor? Who the H knows. All that time and money for nothing. Pulled the hammer and took aim. Couldnt do it. Back into storage it went.
I tried a couple other units with still nothing working. Belt drive = speed variation. Screw the noise. You will never notice it for all the wowowow in the music.
Gemini XL1800. Metal platter, direct drive. Cheap plastic everything else. Threw that one right out the window and took a hammer to it. Fixed.
Pulled out an old $5 yard sale Technics SL-Q2 threw an ortofon concorde in it and wala. Perfection. Sounds better than anything I have had lately and it works. Wow! Amazing! Its in my 80's system and working to this day with zero issues ever. Total price? $105. $5 for the table, and $100 for the cart.
Recently I said I wanted to get into vinyl, looking at some of the table setups on here is like looking at a restored classic car through a plate glass window. Too bad owning a turntable is just like that. Spend half your life working on it, a lot of money. Just to enjoy it maybe once or twice a year. Then it breaks again. And sits around puking fluids everywhere and making you feel like crap every time you see it.
I missed out on a Sota Star Sapphire, and A Oracle Delphi. And honestly, I am glad I did. The Sota owner wasnt happy with his purchase, and who knows where the Oracle went. Probably back into a box under someones bed for another 10 years cause it dont freakin work!!
Enter the JVC QL-5. Bought it cheap knowing it needed work. The base was water damaged and pretty much no good. The cheap particle board took on water and warped up too bad to be repaired. OK I can work with wood. I'll make a new base (plinth). Downloaded the manual. Nowhere in there does it say how to get the drive unit out. No where does it say how to get the platter off. An hour searching the web says pull up on the platter and hit the spindle with a hammer! Now here is a process I know!! Well what do you know. It came off. Drive unit has 9 wood screws holding it from the top. Its out. How hard would it have been to put this in the repair manual??
Tonearm. Its the original JVC Victor arm. Looks like a decent piece. Missing the arm rest and I'm fighting this thing through the whole process flopping around like a limp noodle, until I finally zip tied it down and out of my way. Now the tiny nearly invisible hair like wires that lead to the tonearm. Nope. I'm not doing it. Screw that arm, and the water logged base. The base I can make. I will just have to get a new arm. Something without those effing wires to screw with.
Freakin tedious hair pulling BS working on a TT. No way its worth it.
Rather get a shot in my rear end.
All hail the CD. Besides the wheel and electricity its mans greatest invention.
Thats why I have been listening to them for 3 decades.
The only one worth owning is Technics SL. Cause it just works and you dont have to spend half your life screwing with it and tons of money to make it run. No wonder they are so popular.
Years ago I fought my original turntable trying to get that POS to run again. Never did get it fixed. A BIC belt drive 960. It had been in storage for many years. It had the seized platter syndrome. It took months of soaking that thing in every kind of penetrating oil I could find, and a colossal effort just to get the platter off. Bent the cheesy stamped sheet metal spindle mount in the process.
Tedious little screws. Weird plastic cams. Tiny wires. NO INFORMATION on how it comes apart or how to fix it. New belt. New o rings. New bearings. Stripped out pulley repaired. Capacitor replaced. New cart. Finally got it running after MONTHS of work and it sounded like an acoustic fun house. All kinds of speed variation. Was it the belt? The motor? Who the H knows. All that time and money for nothing. Pulled the hammer and took aim. Couldnt do it. Back into storage it went.
I tried a couple other units with still nothing working. Belt drive = speed variation. Screw the noise. You will never notice it for all the wowowow in the music.
Gemini XL1800. Metal platter, direct drive. Cheap plastic everything else. Threw that one right out the window and took a hammer to it. Fixed.
Pulled out an old $5 yard sale Technics SL-Q2 threw an ortofon concorde in it and wala. Perfection. Sounds better than anything I have had lately and it works. Wow! Amazing! Its in my 80's system and working to this day with zero issues ever. Total price? $105. $5 for the table, and $100 for the cart.
Recently I said I wanted to get into vinyl, looking at some of the table setups on here is like looking at a restored classic car through a plate glass window. Too bad owning a turntable is just like that. Spend half your life working on it, a lot of money. Just to enjoy it maybe once or twice a year. Then it breaks again. And sits around puking fluids everywhere and making you feel like crap every time you see it.
I missed out on a Sota Star Sapphire, and A Oracle Delphi. And honestly, I am glad I did. The Sota owner wasnt happy with his purchase, and who knows where the Oracle went. Probably back into a box under someones bed for another 10 years cause it dont freakin work!!
Enter the JVC QL-5. Bought it cheap knowing it needed work. The base was water damaged and pretty much no good. The cheap particle board took on water and warped up too bad to be repaired. OK I can work with wood. I'll make a new base (plinth). Downloaded the manual. Nowhere in there does it say how to get the drive unit out. No where does it say how to get the platter off. An hour searching the web says pull up on the platter and hit the spindle with a hammer! Now here is a process I know!! Well what do you know. It came off. Drive unit has 9 wood screws holding it from the top. Its out. How hard would it have been to put this in the repair manual??
Tonearm. Its the original JVC Victor arm. Looks like a decent piece. Missing the arm rest and I'm fighting this thing through the whole process flopping around like a limp noodle, until I finally zip tied it down and out of my way. Now the tiny nearly invisible hair like wires that lead to the tonearm. Nope. I'm not doing it. Screw that arm, and the water logged base. The base I can make. I will just have to get a new arm. Something without those effing wires to screw with.
Freakin tedious hair pulling BS working on a TT. No way its worth it.
Rather get a shot in my rear end.
