Most people had picnics and family gatherings today, I completed my two week turntable project. Pretty riveting, huh?
When I first disassembled this work of art, I was a little disappointed to see the bottom edges of the table had some kind of chemical reaction to whatever was in the shag carpet, pretty much ate the finish near the bottom edges all the way around! Also, the on/off switch is extremely scratched- I guess what you would expect from years of studio use.
Racking my brains trying to figure out what to use for a base- butcher block? Too expensive for a nice one, and too hard to work with. I am not an expert woodworker. Granite or marble slab? Ditto all the reasons above. Maybe just set it up as a free standing unit with a separate tone arm base? Too hokey.
Then it hit me! My buddy Bob (Analog Shop) gave me a Bright Star Audio isolation platform years ago, still sitting in the closet! This was kind of weird, had a lawn tractor inner tube glued underneath, you would pump it up from a valve stem in the back until it just rose up enough to lift itself just slightly off the shelf.
Some quick measurements and my gears were turning! Ripped off the inner tube and scraped off the glue.Used a hunk of cut plywood from the fuzzy dice platform as a template, cut the opening for the table, and stayed with the SME mounting pattern. I like to do this as you can still use other arms in the elongated SME hole.
After cutting and drilling I gave it a quick coat of gloss black paint, it was kind of a "clay gray" Nextel- like finish, plus it had numerous scratches and nicks from years of being tossed around. I am about as good a painter as I am a woodworker........
Settled on the Audio Technica AT-1009 arm after trying a couple of others, I figured broadcast table, broadcast arm. Hate the pump cueing! Twice as much work to mount as a conventional arm. You need to do an extra hole for the lever/pump assembly (see the right front in the pictures), and another return hole for the vacuum hose that connects this to the dashpot! WHY can't this just have conventional cueing? Anyway, otherwise a very well made arm, quite famous in its day, and a little more universal than the SME.
As a final touch, mounted some B&W adjustable speaker spikes with threaded inserts to the bottom for leveling and to complete that "modern contemporary look".
What cartridge? Pulled out my old Stanton 681 EEE. Figured broadcast table, broadcast arm, broadcast cartidge, right? Yuck! Off it came for a Nakamichi MC.
So how does it sound? Very analytical. Sounds like a radio station. As I said earlier, not a huge fan of direct drive. Doesn't do anything wrong, and adds no character of its own.You can tell this is a quality table. Strong enough to jump start a Harley, up to speed as quick as you can snap your fingers. Brakes stop it instantly. Also have the wired remote start/stop button for this, went in the closet where it will stay. This will not be replacing my beloved Sotas any time soon. Still, a welcome addition to my collection.
That's great Don! Maybe I can bring you a sixpack some day and we can listen to a couple old albums on it :)
ReplyDeleteI don't quite understand why you didn't use the Technics arm though (?).
I'm embarrassed to say I haven't even set up the 1500 yet. Been in and out of town since we met.
Henry