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TT Repair Shop guy told me DIY is evil!???!

angelaudio said:
Thanks for the laugh AK’ers!

I figured the guy was just trying to sell his services to me but he did a darn good job of making me think I was incompetent for a minute or so.

Also threw my TT under the bus and said that if I ever wanted to get “real” sound that I should buy a Rega P1—errrmm...not happening with the budget I’m on!!!
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That's not even good advice about the Rega, let alone everything else he said :) (I don't like Rega, I think they're overpriced.. see everyone has an opinion, we can't let it be represented as fact!)

To be fair, the guy may be used to selling carts to idiots who have zero mechanical ability, and then bring them back half broken expecting a refund.

Installing and aligning cartridges is certainly within the realm of what a hobbyist with reasonable mechanical skill can do. I mean, if you can change the spark plugs in your car, or install a doorknob, or repair a faucet - you can certainly install and align a cartridge. If all those above jobs would have you paying $150 an hour to a mechanic, a locksmith, or a plumber - maybe you should pay that guy to install the cart too. That's my take on it.
 
maxhifi said:
That's not even good advice about the Rega, let alone everything else he said :) (I don't like Rega, I think they're overpriced.. see everyone has an opinion, we can't let it be represented as fact!)

To be fair, the guy may be used to selling carts to idiots who have zero mechanical ability, and then bring them back half broken expecting a refund.

Installing and aligning cartridges is certainly within the realm of what a hobbyist with reasonable mechanical skill can do. I mean, if you can change the spark plugs in your car, or install a doorknob, or repair a faucet - you can certainly install and align a cartridge. If all those above jobs would have you paying $150 an hour to a mechanic, a locksmith, or a plumber - maybe you should pay that guy to install the cart too. That's my take on it.
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Not only have I installed faucets but get this I’ve also managed to fix em when they leak. Quite a feat eh? Hehe. Thanks for the encouragement though, definitely not giving up on DIY...ever!
 
trainbuftony said:
Dont let the limitations of others hold you back. If you think you can, you are probably right. If you think you have a good idea, chances are you actually have a great idea...
If you get a chance to go to a DIY audio festival like Burning Amp, you will find that this store owner couldn't be more wrong. The very best HiFi equipment is built, by hand, one at a time, by passonate music lovers who know the difference. I highly encourage you to take on more challenging DIY projects. Most of us have been aligning cartridges since before adulthood, its a good first or second challenge, but its not rocket science.
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Thanks for the heads up on Burning Amp and for the encouragement. My passion for music is definitely one of the things that keeps me going every single day so there’s no doubt that I’ll keep on keeping on and learning everything I possibly can about this amazing equipment.
 
Go to one of the reputable places online to get your stylus and then follow the millions of instructional write ups between AK, YouTube and a bunch of other places on how to do the alignment. Not hard, just fiddly.
Sounds like the guy just wants to sell you what he's got on hand and make a bit more to set it up. The trash talking about your current table would 100% have me looking somewhere else.
 
That a "TT repair shop" in LA might try to up-sell you an in-home TT set-up/alignment while dismissing your interest in buying from them a mere stylus is not too surprising, really. Perhaps you are new to LA?

Here's an interview that might give you some idea what service such a shop might provide, should you have $$$ that you wish to spend freely. Note that the interviewee in the linked interview passed away some years ago.

No affiliation and not a recommendation...I do my own set-up (as I assume most AKers do).
 
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petehall347 said:
i was seeing it differently . like it might be he has had a few returns because of buyers not knowing how to do the correct adjustments .
may simply not have enough hours in the day to offer advice .
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The TT shop could have sold him an overpriced stylus and let him try to do it himself. If he couldn't do it he brings it back and lets the repair guy do the alignment. Two transactions money made and in the end a happy customer.Maybe the OP comes back and lets the repair guy rebuild the T.T. down the road and makes a loyal customer . If the T.T shop doesn't have time to offer a little advice he should get out of the business. Happy customer tells 2 people an unhappy customer tells 10 people.
 
He probably came to that conclusion when people try to repair, do a shitty job, and then ask him to repair. Usually that shitty job made the problem worse like lifted tracks, burned plastic, etc., etc., where if he got to it first, he could have done a professional repair job and it'd look almost as good as new instead of full of hacks.

If you know you can't make it at least better than before and you want it fixed - go ask someone else to do it. If you made it worse, expect to pay an arm and a leg to give it to someone else to fix (and please TELL them what you did), or just throw it away and start over. This applies to any electronics.

BTW, the reason why to tell them what you did is for honesty and liability. They hate it because the owner could come back and blame the repair shop for doing the crap the failed DIY attempt did... Please come clean if you want someone to fix your mess! That's why repair shops hate DIY! (and of course if the owner didn't know a previous owner DIY...it makes the problem worse!)
 
I do a lot of turntable repairs and I don't condone that shop's attitude. On the other hand, I am often surprised by how little interest or apparent aptitude many people seem to have regarding what I consider basic DIY tasks. You wanted to do it yourself but I see many who don't.

:dunno:
 
ic-racer said:
This is one of those things where if you actually believe the guy, then he is right.
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He almost had me, but I knew there was something fishy about his approach. I’ve already done some basic service to cheap TT’s but haven’t installed/aligned a cart so I was thinking maybe this guy is speaking some truth. He started to go off about how the micro grooves are 1/70billionth of an inch or some crap like that and that how could I possibly think I could align my own cart. He went on to tell me that he had one of his dealers bring in a 10k TT with a 10K cart that had a blackened needle from dragging across Vinyl the wrong way and blah blah blah. I told him I was new to vinyl earlier in our convo so he thought “I’ll sucker him into thinking he absolutely needs me”...little does he know I consult with the AK community hehehe
 
What a maroon! Instead of saying "sure I'll put on for you bring the headshell and cart"'... (cheap) Customer comes into the shop.. has a look around. Number-one sales rule established. Customer trust.
 
angelaudio said:
. He started to go off about how the micro grooves are 1/70billionth of an inch or some crap like that and that how could I possibly think I could align my own cart. He went on to tell me that he had one of his dealers bring in a 10k TT with a 10K cart that had a blackened needle from dragging across Vinyl the wrong way and blah blah blah. I told him I was new to vinyl earlier in our convo so he thought “I’ll sucker him into thinking he absolutely needs me”...little does he know I consult with the AK community hehehe
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LP records have been more or less the same since the 1950s - this guy is a gigantic clown. They're primitive tech, and while the equipment to play them has to be precise, it's not complex.

I recently bought an old magazine from the 50s which has instructions how to make a DIY tonearm, and mono moving coil cartridge - all totally from stuff you can buy at a hardware store. The magnet is a magnetic cupboard latch. It's a fascinating DIY project - probably more work than I could handle. But if people in the past could DIY stuff like that, a simple alignment is practically child's play.

Or, let me put it another way. I've been installing and aligning carts since I was a pre-teen, and I've never ruined any records or had a cart prematurely fail. The only time I've had a shop install a cartridge for me, is when it was included in the price of a cartridge.

You'd have to really be "all thumbs" to not be able to handle installing a cartridge. Since you fixed a faucet, I think you're fine to do this on your own :)

The problem with this hobby is it attracts a lot of pompous know it alls,who tend to act like the simple tasks they have learned to do, are specialized knowledge. If you want another ridiculous situation like this, ask the guy what he thinks about DIY people changing tubes in their own amps (god forbid!)
 
As a fairly clueless college kid in the 80s, I bought a cart for my Garrard at Rat Shack. Guy hands me the box out of the glass case, and I said "Uh, can't you install it for me?" I had the removeable headshell with me, had no idea that it required alignment and adjustment on the table, just assumed that it was probably complicated and required an expert. He takes the headshell apart, which involved removing the little finger lever that sticks out to the side. He sticks the cart on, reassembles it and hands it back. I go home, put it on the tonearm, and find that the lever is pointing the wrong way towards the center of the platter. Obviously as clueless than me but didn't know it. After break and back at college, I took it to a stereo shop there and explained what happened. They aligned it for free. I promised to come back when I could afford some new gear, and I did. Too bad there aren't many of those stores left. But there's the Interwebs where you can learn a lot of this stuff.
 
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