Turntables, Phono Carts & Record Cleaning

[Gimme 4]

Yes, indeed!
IGD always bothered me when I had my 1st TT, an SL-Q2, which , BTW, was the reason I gave up on pivoted arm TTs (i bumped the arm and it fatally wounded "Brain Damage" in my then beloved MFSL PF DSOTM pressing).
I don't have to tell you that these things are built like freaking tanks...and they sound heavenly! the freq response on the specs sez it goes up to 11! (55KHz!). The SL-10 is way too fancy and with the clamp you run the risk of it going to hell and this one is basically the SL-10 sans the locking mechanism.
I am very thankful that this one just cost me the hassle of dealing with a not very smart/practical seller cause he screwed up big time and PPal wound up refunding the purchase in less than 10 minutes(!!!).
Highly recommended LT TT.
AAMOF, very few people have LT TTs here in this forum which I find rather curious knowing how demanding our QQ brethren are.

Cheers!

Looks like you're in business for CD-4!

I'd love to find my ultimate linear tracker, a Pioneer PL-L1 on Craig's List for a hundred bucks like I did with my PL-L1000. Never seen a PL-L1 in person. It was part of Pioneer's "Elite" series. The two I have a Pioneer PL-L1000 (black) and the Phase Linear 8000 (silver) are basically the same principle operating linear motor to move the arm base. Sony used a linear motor in early CD players maybe the CDP-101 to move the optical assembly. Denon used that same Sony optical pickup linear motor in their DCD-1500. I have one of those here with a worn out spindle motor and a failed optical pickup. The disc would move up and down vertically just a bit while spinning, the tracking servo electronics would try and keep up with it and ultimately fried the focus coil in the optical assembly, so the whole thing's shot. Parts long since unavailable. Sad, that was a great CD player. But I digress...

 

[Gimme 4]

Putting the Stanton 881S to rest for a while and will play my Shure V15-V MR. Haven't played that one in a few years. Sounds great! But I have to be careful, no spare stylus for that one. I had one and sold it to someone in need. Kick myself for doing that. Those are hard to come by.

You can be sure if it's Shure!

1 gram for the stylus and an extra .5 for the carbon fiber brush. That oughta do it! I may have to look that brush compensation up though to be "shure" ☺

Check, and check! I remembered! Bought this cartridge in 1983.

Sound quality reminds me of what Linda said about her Ortofon.. "a bit zingy" in the highs. But sounds good! No sibilance distortion on anything I've played so far tonight. In fact it opens up the high end nicely of that old Cat Stevens Mona Bone Jacon record. Compensates for my old ears I reckon. ☺

 

[Gimme 4]

Country Joe & The Fish - Electric Music For the Mind and Body

This one, especially track 3 side 1 "Death Sound Blues" became my "trackability" test record when I first noticed the diffence between cartridges. I had gotten a Pickering something or other with a big fat cantilever arm and a lot of mass to move for 1¢ with a new Garrard Lab 80 turntable I bought new in 1967 after sacking groceries for a couple of months that summer. That cartridge made the extremely hot tambourine sound like a sack of rocks being shaken. The Shure V15-II I had just bought was clear and clean.

 

[Gimme 4]

Hey Linda... I quoted you yesterday about the "zingy" sound of a cartridge. After playing my V15-V all day that has gone away! Now it has really smoothed out after 10 or 12 hours of play time. I figure the little piece of elastomer or polymer (?) cantilever bearing material must have hardened with age. I've wondered about how they age. Had not used that cartridge in at least 10 years.

 

[edisonbaggins]

Aren't those old records fun?!!

Yes!
This one has a repeat (skip that loops) in the 2nd track. Hopefully I can find a way around that, someday.
But I love it still!

 

[Gimme 4]

Yes!
This one has a repeat (skip that loops) in the 2nd track. Hopefully I can find a way around that, someday.
But I love it still!

Don't ya just hate it when that happens?

 

[Gimme 4]

It's my first! Is there any particular advice for possibly solving it?

Not that I know of. I've tried. The more I messed with it the worse it got. I have a record that jumps ahead on a certain bass note (at least it doesn't sit there and repeat) got another one and it did the same thing! Finally I found that album on CD.

I watched my father use a straight pin to "fix" a 45 that skipped and it worked, but that's a pretty crude way to do it and I sure as heck wouldn't recommend it.

 

[Gimme 4]

It's my first! Is there any particular advice for possibly solving it?

Thought of something... I have seen a few times something, some tiny particle of who knows what, stuck in a groove, and I popped it out with a sharp wooden toothpick! Fixed a few over the years like that. I watched the record label as reference as it spun and where exactly it skipped so I'd know where to look. You might get lucky!

 

[Gimme 4]

Apologies for sounding like a broken record...I have never encountered a skip when playing records on my linear tracking TTs, maybe it's the way it plays the groove or maybe it's the very light weight (1.5 g)...now, I am not saying it's impossible cause I know it will happen eventually but I guess it's less likely than playing it on a pivot arm TT...

Believe me it's possible! When I first got that record that skipped forward I had a Pioneer PL-C590 with a PA-1000 carbon fiber arm.

Like this. A beautiful piece of equipment!

Even tried using the anti-skate to apply enough outer force to make it not skip forward so I could at least get a good cassette copy. Then I got the Phase Linear linear tracker and same thing. I thought the linear tracker would work too but it didn't make any difference. Looked at the groove under a magnifier and I could see the groove just barely into the adjacent spiral of the groove. Over-modulated in the mastering. The limiter in the record cutting process missed it, or the variable pitch didn't move the cutter head far enough to clear.