Vintage HiFi. Sounds great, looks cool, costs peanuts
All types of turntable from cheap portable to high end HiFi
My obsession for monitoring the life of my turntable stylus was satisfied when I built my “Play Mate” monitor. It did the job but boy it was ugly.
Only now have I got around to making an aesthetically pleasing version. Continue reading “Digital record play counter gets a facelift”
These cartridges recently came into my posession very cheaply. A couple of old school classics for sure, so well in keeping with my vintage gear.
They both came attached to 2nd hand turntables Were they worth it? Continue reading “Perils of 2nd hand Cartridges. Nagaoka mp-10. Shure M75ED.”
Hiding in a dark corner of a local antiques centre was this chunk of fine German Engineering.
The label declared that it was “running slow”. For just £35 it would be rude not to find out just how slow. Continue reading “On the case of a Dual 504 turntable”
Back in 2018 I built my own record cleaning machine. It did the job, but wasn’t pretty.
I recently acquired a better donor turntable and have built a new machine, addressing some of the annoying quirks of my original. Continue reading “PlecRec RCM II. Updated Record Cleaning Machine”
I often use a fully automatic turntable for causal listening. For a small drop in fidelity I get the convenience of just flicking a lever and the record plays.
This worked great for LP’s and 7″ singles. Problem came with 12″ singles. Continue reading “Manual only for 12 inch singles on Garrard zero 100.”
Figuring out when a stylus or cartridge needs changing depends on many things. Condition of record, how well your system is set up and how may hours use it has had.
Recording needle time is a useful thing to do then, but precision of 10th of a second isn’t really necessary. So why did I create this fancy automatic digital play counter called the “Play Mate”? Continue reading “Play Mate digital record play counter and timer”
The Garrard Zero 100 is innovative, gorgeous to look at and absolutely bonkers. My love of these old British made turntables started three years ago when I picked up an example of the original Zero 100 at a boot sale.
Recently I treated myself to a fine example of the later Zero 100SB model. After an eventful restoration, it’s time to appreciate it. Continue reading “Garrard Zero 100SB Turntable. An appreciation”
Back in the 70’s I was a teenager with no access to any sort of decent audio equipment. That was until my brother in law treated himself to one of these.
It’s state of the art for it’s day, and a lot better than the Ferguson music centre we had in the family home. Continue reading “My first hands on HiFi. Hitachi SDT-7675”
My latest acquisition of a splendid vintage Garrard turntable has turned from a simple restoration to something of an epic job.
All was going well. I had got it working and was about to re unite it with it’s plinth. Then I dropped it. Now I have new damage to fix. Continue reading “Garrard Zero 100SB Turntable. Transplant surgery.”
By combining induction techniques for torque and synchronous operation for speed precision, Garrard produced a motor which was revolutionary for its time.
An unfortunate moment of butter fingers led to the demise of this one when I dropped the turntable it was inside. Weighing in at 3/4 of a kilo it fell hard. Hopefully I can fix it. Continue reading “Garrard Synchro lab motor repair for Zero 100 SB turntable”