ARCHIVED FORUM -- March 2012 to February 2022READ ONLY FORUM
This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
I usually go to my Beogram 8002 when I am in the mood to listen to vinyl. Today I decided to switch over to my older 4002 and noticed the speed was slow and a squeal was coming from inside. I removed the platter and aluminum deck to discover the racket was coming from the motor (the main motor that drives the pulley). I think I have a spare so I'll search for that. Since I don't play my records every day like I used to, what kind of maintenance is good for these turntables? My 8002 is playing fine but should I be opening it up and lubricating the moving parts regularily (once a year?). Same with the 4002. What kind of maintenance should I be doing on the linear tracking parts?
-sonavor
I think simply running them on a regular basis. Need to make sure all bearings are lubed. If the dc motor you can pull apart and replenish the bearings with fresh oil.
Olly
That makes sense. I was able to apply some oil to the noisy motor and it quieted right up and seems to be working fine again. No need to use my spare. Once I get through my current To-Do list of audio projects, I need to go over my 4002 and make some adjustments. Although it is playing records good I noticed that the tracking force wheel no longer moves. I used a B&O stylus balance tool to measure the current setting and it is showing my 4002 is set to just over 0.8g. The 20CL cartridge recommends 1g. It didn't have any problem playing a couple of albums today but I would like to have the tracking force functional again.
If you are going to use a lubricant, sewing machine oil, and only a drop or so, is what is recommended.
Peter
I've always said that the best maintenance you can do for any old equipment is to be prepared and have a few spares in a drawer for when things DO go wrong. I have a few needles and some bulbs for my projectors, just in case people are round when they break.
I think I'm right in saying though that it's important to just use them every now and again. Sort of like if you have a car that's not being used much, you should take it on a 5 mile drive once per fortnight, just to open up the engine and get things moving. Otherwise the drive bands and belts might start to get used to the same stresses/shape.
Ideally you need to heat the oil into the bearings, but this is messy and requires a complete stripdown of the motor. Lots of 400x servo motors are suffering dried bearings now and once they start screeching they are probably damaged beyond repair, so it is very important to make sure the oilite bearings are replenished with oil while the sun is shining, so to speak! The brushes are also wearing, some more than others - unfortunately there is no easy fix here.
I haven't tried heating oil into the main platter motors yet (apart from on the shaded pole motors of the simpler beograms) but I will be attempting this soon!
Worth checking the shafts for signs of wear. There should be no ring marks on the shaft where the bearing is - this applies to the main platter bearing too!
I have started playing my record albums more lately so that will keep my turntables in shape. I need to start using my tape decks again though. I rarely use them anymore so I need to start exercising them too.
Tapes are awesome, you can whack two albums on them which for most bands would be "the 2 good ones" I have dozens of mix tapes lying around for when people come round for dinner. At some point I keep meaning to make a whole load of them based on years, recorded from my iTunes where I spent days some time ago tagging the correct date to every track. Definitely, tapes are cool and physical/tangible like a vinyl, and they require maintenance just as much but they lack the 'cool' factor the 12" disks have managed to recover lately
Not so keen on tapes (don't tell Tim!) - they sound a lot worse with age, they hiss, requiring coarse noise reduction, the mechanisms need regular maintenance or will chew the tapes and the medium is becoming more difficult to find. I have stopped using wax cylinders as well!
I am afraid that digital storage is clearly the best method these days for recorded media especially as the drives are now very cheap.
Yes, but I love my Revox A77, my Nakamichis and my Beocords all the same... I am now listening to "Summer Night City" by ABBA on my Revox. Nice!
I remember a time when we fantasized about the day we could put an entire CD onto a memory chip... not so long ago!
Maintenance of decks: trouble is, the manufacturers always chose cheap solutions for their motors, such as sintered brass bearings (I hate those). Nothing of the sort on Revoxes, just plain old replaceable (but they will last forever) ball bearings and direct driven mechanisms.
Jacques
I think I have gone full circle. I started out with record albums and accumulated two thousand of them when CDs came out. I got suckered into the mind set that LPs were dead and sold off seventeen hundred of my collection twenty-five years (or so) ago...ouch! I kept a lot of my favorites but now I wish I had kept about five hundred more. I am not opposed to CDs as I have a pretty big collection but I am discovering things I like about the vinyl analog sound. I continued down the digital path and assembled a large collection of mp3 files (192kb and 320kb). They are all tagged and work great on ipods and my computers. Very convenient and sound good too. When I started refurbishing and using my vintage stereos, I started playing CDs again and realized there is still a noticeable difference versus the mp3 version. From there I started listening to my vinyl records. On some of those (not all) I find I like the vinyl LP better. One theory is it could be a matter of the human brain..memory. I first heard my favorite music on vinyl so when I hear it that way my brain tells me that is what sounds best. However, I think there is more to it. When I had my complete LP collection there were noticeable recording quality differences between some records. That is a complaint I see when reading some reviews of remastered CDs and even re-released, 180gram LPs today. That the remastering isn't satisfactory to some listeners and they prefer some previoulsy released version. Earlier this year I started listening to some SACD (super audio) media. Some of the recordings are outstanding. Others don't sound much different than my CD version. So what about the LP version? I was listening to Brian Auger's Oblivion Express "Straight Ahead", Yes "Close to the Edge", Bruce Springsteen "Born to Run", Emerson, Lake & Palmer (1st LP) and 999 "Greatest Prize In Sport" on album yesterday and the sound was great. It is different from the CDs but good. My take on it is similar to how speakers sound different - different environments and different speaker construction results in different sound. Speakers can sound good but be different. If there was one true "best" speaker then everyone would be buying that one speaker. With going back to vinyl sound I have the cartridge in play, the amplifier input phono stage and the way the music was compressed on the disc all contributing to the sound. What I am rediscovering is that I really like that sound. That doesn't mean I no longer listen to my mp3 collection. There are times when that is very convenient. Like when travelling or when I want music playing and I don't know what to play, so I just put my computer on shuffle.
How did this get off the topic of turntable maintenance. ...I guess explaining why we still need to keep the turntables running.
Peter: I am afraid that digital storage is clearly the best method these days for recorded media especially as the drives are now very cheap.
I see your point, Peter. But - it's not always just a question of 'the best' method of storing media -or the easiest way of storing/listening to music...
One of the reasons there can be sites like this, is that a lot of people like the older equipment. If you have a B&O with a taperecorder it is quite nice now and then to put a tape in -just like listening to a record -or a CD. You can have music on the computer or NAS drive or whatever besides that.It doesn't have to be either / or.
You wouldn't tell the owner of a vintage car "Hey man -why don't you just buy a new one" -would you..?