u/edwardturnerlives

This is Jagger. He's a mischievous, love bug and has become my shadow. When we met he had an aversion for males, but after a bath and a lot of treats, he snapped right out of that and has been inseparable from me. We have been talking about fostering for 2 years and my family finally decided to take the plunge. Our 3 year old Dottie is loving having a friend.

I've got a fever, a fever for linear trackers. It's been a linear tracker summer for sure. Just picked up this basically brand new SL-5, still in box. I got it from the original owner who has had it in storage for over 40 years. It was his H.S. graduation present in 1983. He basically opened it, put it back, and never used it. He told me he moved out, never got around to using it, and then moved into the CD age. A couple weeks ago he got the itch to see if he wanted to get back into vinyl and he decided he definitely preferred streaming. So here it is now in my collection. Works like new. He told me the Audio Technica AT122LP Cartridge basically has one record of play on it.

I finally a chance to play with this today on Father's day. It had been in storage for 40 years. I expected the worse. Every bulb works. Every feature works. A little crackly from the controls and the rhythm switch is broken, but otherwise fully operational. What an odd gimmicky kind of ugly but also beautiful receiver. I love having all the tone controls even if they feel like they could break at any second. Why so many receiver companies made the volume knob look like all the other knobs is something Ill never understand. Screw on speaker terminals (boo). The tuner is strong, like every other Kenwood I've had. 2 Phonos, 4 speakers, 33wpc. Playing thru the Pioneer CS-53 speakers which also work great.

Just got back from a 4 hour round trip based off a blurry Marketplace photo titled "Old Turn Tables" and a super friendly seller. I spotted a corner of the Marantz and the Kenwood Jumbo Jet. I couldn't really tell what the speakers or the other turntable was. Needless to say I apologized to my wife and immediately left. It was an age old situation, son cleaning out the house of deceased parents. He held it for me until I got there.

The Marantz 6300 is in primo aesthetic shape (but it does not turn on, I'm assuming it's a switch issue or a capacitor issue). I've been wanting one for over 25 years and didn't think it would ever happen. The Jumbo Jet is also in great shape. Every switch is dirty. Time for some Bossa Nova beats! The other turntable was a dang Lenco L75! Swedish excellence. The speakers are Pioneer CS-53 and Kenwood KL-7090 (kabukis). Everything needs serviced, cleaned, etc.

I was sweating for 2 hours on the way there. Super duper stoked.

Today's sweetheart of a score. I was comparing it to my SL-1300. Assuming they are both 100% factory there are a couple differences I wasn't expecting.

The dustcover on the 1300 is smoked and the 1500 is not.
The hinges are different. The 1500 has internal screws to hold the dustcover. The 1300 slips onto the hinges. But the dustcovers arei interchangeable.

The headshell on the 1500 is basically the same as the 1300, but the arm is slightly more forward.

Just some observations. I don't normally gravitate towards manual tables but she's a beaute.

I've been on a linear tracker kick. I found this local and watched the price come down. It was listed as "powers on". I took a chance and brought it home. The dang thing works perfect. It's almost a cd player. Craziness. I will be pulling it apart to service, but this thing is neat.

Playing it on my office setup. Just restored that Technics SL-QL1 too.

Most were still there, a few bigger names picked off. Luckily most people don't care about old country. Best find for me was the Red Sovine and the Wanda Jackson. Nothin to write home about but this is Bargain Bin Vinyl after all.

Until I realized they were $5 each and put them back.
EDIT: Just found out today is 50% Monday, debating going back. An hour round trip drive for some so-so records?

I posted this on AudioKarma, didn't get any responses. So hopefully someone here has some advice.

Linear tracker folks,
I picked up a SL-QL1 that looked like it just came out of the box, but some meathead tweaked the tonearm, so it was sitting in cock-eyed. I disassembled the tonearm and found that somehow the pointy tipped screws that allow the tone arm to pivot left/right had torn thru the metal guide holes in the tonearm pivot. I think I fixed that. There's no spec on tension of the screws (or any info on this repair whatsoever) so I went by gut. Did a complete upper chassis clean and relube.

But after that was fixed I noticed the tracking force was way off so I disassembled the tonearm again and discovered the tracking force spring was all messed up. I crossed my fingers and bent it up to reattach to the string. But now the tonearm would no longer drop. I fixed this by adding a small nut to get the correct tracking force of 1.25 grams. I noticed I get a lot of skips at 1.25 so I bumped it up to 1.5 and it performs better-ish.

My question is, is it even possible to fix the tracking force spring? It seems like I also would need some sort of setup to recalibrate the weight on the end (the screw appears to be loctited). That seems like an almost impossibility.

I'm debating completely detaching and removing the spring, and manually calibrating it with a weight on the tonearm stylus end (something classier than a taped on nut). Has anyone dealt with this? Is there a fix for the spring? I'm so close to getting this damn thing working right.

I've been wanting one of these for a loooong time so I'm pretty stoked. One showed up on Offerup, I'd say Ebay price for parts. "Excellent condition, everything works, platter doesn't spin." I did a quick bit of research about the platter not spinning and a comment was "I guarantee you it's the fuse." so I took a chance and offered them way under their asking price and they took it. I got home, sure enough the 1A fuse was blown. I didn't have any in the right size so I soldered/piggy-backed a bigger 1A TEMPORARILY. Thing spins right up. Everything works. Has the original headshell with a Shure V15 III. The smoked dustcover is nice very few scratches and crack free with one chip I think I can repair. The plinth has some tape residue but appears to be near mint. Will need the typical service but I am jazzed. And yes I ordered the correct fuse.

I've been on a roll buying really nice condition but non-functioning turntables this year for cheap.

I just got done doing a fairly serious repair on a tweaked tonearm. If there's any interest I'll post it here. But I'm left with a Technics P202C (EPC-P202) p-mount cartridge with a bad stylus. Doing some research I keep seeing the JICO stylus recommended and it's $250-$350. That's 5X+what I paid for the machine. This can't possibly be the only option. Are there any other good options out there? I know these use specific cartridges specified at 1.25 grams. The Tonearm only allows +/- .25 g adjustment.

I was on the hunt for a PL-518 when one came up on Offerup. I was expecting a working turntable, but when I pulled up to the tweaker house, I knew what was about to happen. He found it in an alley. It was covered in dust. It turned on but the platter wouldn't maintain speed, the tonearm rest was broken, no feet, not platter mat. I declined and he offered it to me for $20 so then I couldn't say no.

Under all the dust was a surprisingly nice plinth, no scratches or chips. A Pickering XV-15 cartridge with an actual decent stylus. The dustcover had the usual scratches and cable melt spots. I completely tore it apart (fairly confident I was the first person ever in there), cleaned every single thing with Q-Tips and IPA, relubed everything, cleaned the potentiometers, resoldered some wires, fixed the cuing piston, replaced the tonearm rest. I found some $20 feet on Amazon I liked and modified them to work with the original screws and screw holes. I polished the cover with the 3M Headlight kit and, after 3 hours, came out pretty good. There are a few spiderweb stress fractures I couldn't remove but oh well. I'm really super happy. These are really well made super easy to work on.

In the end I have a real nice PL-518. Total investment. $60.

So they're multiplying, I've become pretty fascinated with these linear tracking turntables. I bought this one because the damn thing is near mint but it has a tracking issue, which I knew on purchase. I'll hit start. It'll get to the record, lonearm lowers, and then just skate all the way across the record. I'm unsure if it's maybe the belt, which definitely needs replacing, or it's some sort of tone arm pressure issue. Sometimes it'll start working just fine.

Is there a way to actually measure the tone arm pressure with a scale? The moment power is disconnected the tonearm lifts back up.
EDIT: I think I figured out a janky way to do it. Move the tonearm halfway across, drop it down. Unplug it (the tonearm lifts up). Remove the belt and the rubber mat. Put something in the platter to keep from spinning (stall it). Power back on. If you put in the scale and lower it down, it will read. And according to my scale, the middle position which is supposed to be 1.25 g is actually 1.75 g. I'll mess around more with that.

Another problem is I think the tone arm is actually slightly warped, kind of twisted. You can see it in the one picture. I'm curious if maybe it was just stored in a hot room and over the years the plastic tonearm tweaked. I'm unsure how to attempt to fix this... Maybe remove it and a hair dryer?

Anyway, the thing is gorgeous. I'm hoping once I get these problems figured out she'll be good to go and I'll have another gorgeous turntable. It is a perfect compliment to my SL-Q3. If anybody has any experience working on these please let me know.