Official AR Turntable Owners Thread

[BlacknTan]

Just as an aside here.. I'm just starting back with vinyl and the AR77XB. Waiting for my new stylus, I bought one of the digital tracking scales. I was absolutely amazed at how accurate the cheesy AR balance gauge was. Set to 1.5 g. with the AR, 1.55g with the digital. Not bad for a plastic piece of junk.

 

[scootchu]

I can check my parts and at the very least I do have the thicker Delrin material that I can cut a thrust plate for you

Thank you!

 

[noisefreq]

Spindle length is not as important as stylus rake angle. I stack thurst plates in the platter well and sometimes in the tonearm well depending on cartridge dimensions or platter mat thickness, etc. It's an ingenious design that facilitates tonearm height adjustment. Having different thrust plate thicknesses helps fine tune your height adjustments.

 

[StuartB]

Spindle length is not as important as stylus rake angle. I stack thurst plates in the platter well and sometimes in the tonearm well depending on cartridge dimensions or platter mat thickness, etc. It's an ingenious design that facilitates tonearm height adjustment. Having different thrust plate thicknesses helps fine tune your height adjustments.

True that.

 

[Tubestruck]

Still love my ES-1. It is my main table right now and has a few upgrades. Delrin pulley and upgraded spring kit from vinyl nirvana. Last year I found a gentleman in Berlin who has an eBay shop. He makes custom armboards for it out of corian. I had one for an SME mount as well back when I owned a 3009. He was able to make one compatible for the Kuzma Stogi S uni pivot arm. Due to the weight of the arm and armboard, the suspension spring closest to the tonearm has to be adjusted substantially to balance with the other two springs, which is why it is raised quite high. Currently running a Dynavector 20x2 L with it and it sounds glorious!

I would like to get a custom plinth made for it soon. Although the original cherry plinth is in great cosmetic shape, one of the four particleboard blocks underneath where the feet screw in has eroded away a bit, so the screw can no longer hold in place. The motor is still the original Hurst, but will probably upgrade to the gem dandy one soon.

 

[sfrost]

Due to the weight of the arm and armboard, the suspension spring closest to the tonearm has to be adjusted substantially to balance with the other two springs, which is why it is raised quite high.

You need to add weight to the subchassis at the other two springs to compensate for the arm/armboard weight, probably around 1-2 pounds. Easier done with the subchassis and components outside of the plinth, setting up the subchassis with the springs, platers and arm on a jig so you can add weights at the spring locations to get the same compression on all three springs. Having one spring compressed way more than the other two defeats the purpose of the sprung suspension.

 

[scootchu]

Holy play doh people! I knew there was clay in the t-bar but when I opened the bottom it was Romper Room! Leave it in the plinth? Take it off the t-bar. Heat gun and scraper looks to be in order.

 

[scootchu]

Appearance from up top looks normal friend threw in an extra tonearm and a few other odds and ends. It needs to have the tonearm rewired, but I have no complaints.

 

[StuartB]

Holy play doh people! I knew there was clay in the t-bar but when I opened the bottom it was Romper Room! Leave it in the plinth? Take it off the t-bar. Heat gun and scraper looks to be in order

How easy is it to remove? If it was me, I would do my best to get rid of it all. The XA is such a simple, elegant table, that clay material would drive me crazy.

 

[Blackdog61]

How easy is it to remove? If it was me, I would do my best to get rid of it all. The XA is such a simple, elegant table, that clay material would drive me crazy.

I once put rope caulk on every square mm of the Tbar of my XA and it killed the tone. Get rid of it.

 

[scootchu]

Not sure how hard it will be. I soldered the tonearm wires and now I smell like kindergarten. On the plus side the top looks great aside from some polishing and the motor is quite and not too bad.

 

[Hose53]

How easy is it to remove? If it was me, I would do my best to get rid of it all. The XA is such a simple, elegant table, that clay material would drive me crazy.

Yikes! Playdough attack! Looks like top plate is in good shape other than the playdough underneath it!
Then the underside! Looks like all the wiring, harness, motor, springs have been covered with playdough.
It'll take time to clean it out but looks like that is a good plinth and it has the logo plate.
Looks like shield is over the motor so might be an older motor. I have the pieces including T-bar to replace all that stuff if you aren't able to clean it all off.
Let us know how we can help or recommend. You'll have plenty of comments on this!

 

[scootchu]

It comes out fairly easily, just going to take a while. I peels off the metal top plate, so there's hope for the t bar. It sounds pretty good, so I'll wait til it warms up outside and do the play dough removal on the porch.

 

[BlacknTan]

I don't know if it's been mentioned, but perhaps a heatgun on a low setting, or a hair dryer might help..

 

[Rageon]

Hi All,
New to the forum, but have collected vinyl for a while... I managed to get myself an AR XB, in pretty good nick, and runs, but Im still going to do a bit of a reno and a few upgrades. A new plinth, an upgraded spring kit and new stylus for the time being.
Due to the way our room is set out I have the TT a fair way from the amp, a yamaha RX-V571. The amp does not have a phono stage, as far as I can find out so I will also add a pre amp.
So to my questions... any recommendations for a pre amp, and, as its approx four meters, 12 feet, from the amp what cables should I run from the pre amp to the amp?
If all this is covered in another thread feel free to shove me in that direction and I can look it up but any and all help gratefully received.
Cheers,
Ray.

 

[Nashou66]

Hi All,
New to the forum, but have collected vinyl for a while... I managed to get myself an AR XB, in pretty good nick, and runs, but Im still going to do a bit of a reno and a few upgrades. A new plinth, an upgraded spring kit and new stylus for the time being.
Due to the way our room is set out I have the TT a fair way from the amp, a yamaha RX-V571. The amp does not have a phono stage, as far as I can find out so I will also add a pre amp.
So to my questions... any recommendations for a pre amp, and, as its approx four meters, 12 feet, from the amp what cables should I run from the pre amp to the amp?
If all this is covered in another thread feel free to shove me in that direction and I can look it up but any and all help gratefully received.
Cheers,
Ray.

The Sota Pyxi , its $300 and can do long runs . Its small and it way outperforms its price point .

Athanasios

 

[Rageon]

Thanks for the feedback Athanasios, I checked their site and it seems it would suit pretty well.
For the longer run would I have to do anything special with the leads to the amp?

 

[jviss]

Thanks for the feedback Athanasios, I checked their site and it seems it would suit pretty well.
For the longer run would I have to do anything special with the leads to the amp?

Where will the preamp be, near the TT or near the integrated amp?

I recommend the former. If you choose the latter, I would investigate some high quality instrument cable, like Mogami.

 

[Trasky]

Hi all,

Very new here and thought I'd add to the thread after giving it a skim. I had an ATLP-120 for a while with a basic bookshelf speaker setup which was okay for me as I'm not a big audiophile, but had to sell for reasons. Recently I've been very lucky to have been given this AR-XB1 from a family member, and I'd love to touch it up. I am a tad inept when it comes to fixing electronics and turntables so please bare with me, I am willing to learn! It seems that I've come to the right thread to ask questions (no matter how laughably basic they will be) to sanity check that I'm not damaging records and that I'm getting the best experience out of the table.

I've attached some images of the condition of the table. Already I can see the cart is a Grace F-8L'10 MM, which after research seems to be decent however the stylus is bent and I'm unsure of the needle's condition. Other noticeable things are that the sub-platter seems to move around a bit - is this normal due to the way its attached with the springs, or should those be replaced? Also the gunk on the top of the sub-patter that the thrust plate (correct me if this is wrong) will need scrubbing away. The belt has also left a bit of marking on the pulley, so I'll have the belt replaced. Otherwise, I'm a little clueless. The table does seem to spin at the right speed however. I'm also curious as to what the 'Lock' part is on the bottom left on the turntable? Again please excuse my ignorance if I've missed something skimming this forum

Sorry for the long post but I want to make sure I do this table justice! Thank you all.

 

[gregj]

Hi. Welcome to AK. There are no dumb questions here. I've learned a lot about the AR XB from this forum so I will share some of what I know to try and answer your questions. I'm sure there are others more knowledgeable than me who will also chime in. You've got a great turntable that's light years above modern starter units. It will be worth your time and effort to restore it. I recently pulled mine out of storage and it is playing again with a little maintenance.

1) Hard to tell from your photo if the stylus is bent. It looks a little off center. Is it bent up toward the camera or is the cantilever straight? If you have a jewelers loop or other magnifier you can inspect the stylus tip for wear or damage.
2) "Movement of subplatter"--By this do you me the t-shaped undercarriage that is mounted with 3 springs. It is supposed to move because it is suspended by the springs. The platter mounts to this and the whole assembly is isolated by the springs from motor vibration. That's one of the cool design features that makes this TT so quiet. You may need to replace the foam inside the springs then re-adjust the tension on the springs.
3) "the gunk on the top of the sub-patter that the thrust plate"--Looks like your referring to the foam washer around the opening to the spindle bearing well. I just removed the foam that was loose. You should also re-oil the spindle bearing well and spindle shaft. There is a thread here that shows how.
4) The belt residue on the pulley can be cleaned off with a Q-tip and isopropyl alcohol. You're correct that a new belt would help.
4) The "lock" looks like it is the base part of an aftermarket device called the Dust Bug. There was an arm that attached to the base and it collected dust from the record surface. This device and the lock base part are not related to the turntable's performance.

There are also some great threads on restoring the AR here on AK. Do a search for these threads and you'll learn more like I did. Good luck and keep asking questions if you get stuck. AK members are very user-friendly

GREG