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Recently I have had some serious issues with my turntables. The arm my Yamaha PX-2 linear track is sticking & the arm height adjustment is frozen, and after bringing my Technics SL-1600MKII for a speed display issue, I got it back unfixed with the addition of a now non working table suspension. I can't find any one to work on either of these machines because of their complexity!
I have been forced to resort to my emergency secondary backup table, an old belt drive Yamaha PF-800. Last time I used this, I would have to nudge the platter to get it moving... And to make things worse, it is a straight arm P-mount system, limiting the cartridges I can use. So I did 2 things. I found a standard mount cartridge adapter on Ebay, and decided to purchase a high quality replacement belt that I found at LP Gear.
The new belt performed better than expected! Of course a strobe disc showed smoother movement, but a test with an old P-mount cartridge gave me something I didn't expect. It was a closeout cartridge I purchased 30+ years ago at a Best Buy outlet. A Shure V-15 HR-P that I never liked. One channel was louder than the other. It was dull sounding with mids that sounded muddy & non very detailed. (Yetch!) But now, there is no channel imbalance, and the mids are very detailed with an amazing 3 dimensional soundstage. It's not bright sounding like an Ortofon 2M, but the treble is there & smooth sounding. I was so impressed, I restored 4 LP's yesterday with it!
If you're not liking the sound of your belt drive turntable, you might be surprised at what a new decent quality belt might do...
HELP! Does anyone out there know a good seasoned technician that would be familiar with either of my main turntables for repair? I have heard of Professor Bizzt who is a professional with Yamaha linear tracks, but he is 6 months out - talk about popular. Any help would be appreciated.
I have been forced to resort to my emergency secondary backup table, an old belt drive Yamaha PF-800. Last time I used this, I would have to nudge the platter to get it moving... And to make things worse, it is a straight arm P-mount system, limiting the cartridges I can use. So I did 2 things. I found a standard mount cartridge adapter on Ebay, and decided to purchase a high quality replacement belt that I found at LP Gear.
The new belt performed better than expected! Of course a strobe disc showed smoother movement, but a test with an old P-mount cartridge gave me something I didn't expect. It was a closeout cartridge I purchased 30+ years ago at a Best Buy outlet. A Shure V-15 HR-P that I never liked. One channel was louder than the other. It was dull sounding with mids that sounded muddy & non very detailed. (Yetch!) But now, there is no channel imbalance, and the mids are very detailed with an amazing 3 dimensional soundstage. It's not bright sounding like an Ortofon 2M, but the treble is there & smooth sounding. I was so impressed, I restored 4 LP's yesterday with it!
If you're not liking the sound of your belt drive turntable, you might be surprised at what a new decent quality belt might do...
HELP! Does anyone out there know a good seasoned technician that would be familiar with either of my main turntables for repair? I have heard of Professor Bizzt who is a professional with Yamaha linear tracks, but he is 6 months out - talk about popular. Any help would be appreciated.
They only sold top shelf equipment (Marantz, McIntosh, Fisher, etc). Not sure what their situation is today, since that was back circa '65 to '67.
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