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Official AR Turntable Owners Thread

4Play said:
AVFan... Please share your tonearm. Did you replace the tube with a newer one that would accept removable headshells.
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There are some terrific ARs in this thread and some great inspiration! Keep 'em coming! I have an XA that will get the full upgrade in the near future and I like the lighted XA switch!

Marc is the genius behind the tonearm mods. I wanted to use standard removable headshells and Marc suggested replacing the original with a Technics (I believe) tube. Works great! I swap between Grado and Shure carts fairly regularly.
 
This photo is a little old, I've got a homemade cork mat on it now, and a Denon DL-110 homc.

QdzsMNw.jpg
 
Those were some of the good old days. Buy a table and get the cartridge for one cent, and the XAs were $78. That was one heck of a deal.

Now, back to our regular scheduled program. :music:
 
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4Play said:
Those were some of the good old days. Buy a table and get the cartridge one cent, and the XAs were $78. That was one heck of a deal.

Now, back to our regular scheduled program. :music:
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But we have to keep in mind that there has been nearly 50 years of inflation between the time these turntables were new and today. According to an online inflation calculator I consulted, $78.01 in 1964 is equivalent to $596.58 in 2014. Still, the AR-XA was and is a great performing turntable for the money.
 
Don't tease us and leave. Your table deserves a bigger pic to showcase her beauty.
 
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Treker said:
But we have to keep in mind that there has been nearly 50 years of inflation between the time these turntables were new and today. According to an online inflation calculator I consulted, $78.01 in 1964 is equivalent to $596.58 in 2014. Still, the AR-XA was and is a great performing turntable for the money.
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Treker... I could not agree more with your statement. It doesn't matter how old an AR table is, it will always be the best value for the money.

I would be interested in what mods did Marc do on your XA. Definitely a beautiful table. :music:
 
4Play said:
Treker... I could not agree more with your statement. It doesn't matter how old an AR table is, it will always be the best value for the money.

I would be interested in what mods did Marc do on your XA. Definitely a beautiful table. :music:
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Because my table was in very good original condition to begin with, I wanted to keep it pretty stock but to greatly improve its' performance by making several select "under the hood" improvements.

To that end, I had Marc service the sub-chassis by polishing the main bearing and tonearm bearing wells, as well as polishing the main bearing on the sub-platter and replacing the thrust bearing. This took my platter spin down time (33.3rpm to 0) from a respectable minute and 45 seconds to nearly 3 minutes.

On the tonearm side, I had Marc install his excellent sapphire pivot bearings and polish the tapered pivot screws.

And finally, I purchased a set of matched stock suspension springs as well as set of Marc's centering springs perches.

After everything was installed and dialed in, I would have to say that this deck really purrs. As I have said before, it is currently my best sounding deck, and I personally think it would take a whole lot more money (4 to 5 times as much?) than I have into it right now to best its' performance. On top of that, it is a pleasure to look it. It is a classic.
 
OK, I'll chip in with my lightly modified XA. There's some beautiful tables posted here.

I didn't want to do anything irreversible but I may rethink that. A post by sfrost at vinylengine was my inspiration for the Technics arm wand swap about five years ago. Bearing polishing, spring perch mods with wing nut adjusters, my armrest repair (Jay, are you going to use the one I sent?) and a hammertone deck refinish are the extent so far. There's more to do.
 

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Nice table 12AX7, how easy/difficult was the arm swap? And where can I get an arm rest like that one?
 
12ax7 said:
OK, I'll chip in with my lightly modified XA. There's some beautiful tables posted here.

I didn't want to do anything irreversible but I may rethink that. A post by sfrost at vinylengine was my inspiration for the Technics arm wand swap about five years ago. Bearing polishing, spring perch mods with wing nut adjusters, my armrest repair (Jay, are you going to use the one I sent?) and a hammertone deck refinish are the extent so far. There's more to do.
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Hey Gary, what brand and color hammertone paint did you use? It looks very nice, and the color looks very stock, at least in the photo.

I plan on using your tonearm rest fix (a very simple and elegant idea I might add) when I refinish the top deck on my turntable. The pyramid shaped base that is on mine right now left a mark on the top deck that will be quite visible if I put one on with a standard shaped and sized base without refinishing it first.
 
tygr said:
Nice table 12AX7, how easy/difficult was the arm swap? And where can I get an arm rest like that one?
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Thank you. The Technics arm wand swap is actually quite easy. The only part I needed was a cup end set screw to replace the special AR pin end screw. The most involved part of this particular swap was carefully saving the original wires, freeing them from that red epoxy/paint in the pivot. I wanted to maintain an original appearance. The Technics wires are too short to reach the AR terminal strip besides being way too thick. To the best of my knowledge, the only Technics S-shaped arm wands that won't work are from the SL-20/SL-23, they're too thick.

As far as the armrest goes, Marc said it, I made it from square channel brass. Here's a thread about it:

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=351084

And Treker, the paint I used is Rust-Oleum dark bronze hammered. As you can see in the link above and the pic below, it does indeed change quite a bit in different light. I may redo it, I may copy Steve again.
 

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This is turning into a fabulous resource thread on AR turntables. There still other models we haven't heard from.

Please post your pics, the mods and/or upgrades that was done. :music:
 
Stock AR77xb, last of the pre 80's tables.



Arm spindle a little different then the rest of the other AR tables.

 
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