[jjcapurro]

Hi All,
So a friend of mine just gave me his old turntable. It's a really nice older technics with a rega tonearm and ...for the moment... a cheap audio technica cartridge. I haven't used any sort of vinyl playback system since I was about 10 with my cheap playskool record player so I'm jumping in with both feet. Anyway here's the problem... My needle (stylus?) broke this morning. I'm now torn because I am pretty strapped for cash at the moment, but do plan to replace the cartridge with a nice grado one reasonably soon. Can I even replace just the stylus? Would it just behoof me to replace the cartridge and not bother trying to prolong the life of the AT? Is there a good easy to read primer somewhere for vinyl setup & maintanence?

Cheers,
Jeremy

 

[memepool]

Sounds like a great set-up. Technics with Rega arms are quite a recent upgrade but a really good one. You should be able to find a replacement stylus for your AT easily enough on the web. AT make some decent carts. I would also check out Stanton 681 and Shure M97 / V15VMR carts when you upgrade dep on your budget.
Technics tables, as with all record players, benefit from being placed on a platform isolated from external vibrations. Ideally a solid table on a concrete / stone floor or a rigid shelf bolted to the wall.
You need a Shure Stylus gauge to set up the cart properly as you need to set the tracking weight for the particular stylus.
If you have the Origin Live armboard for the technics this includes VTA adjustment so you are sorted there. Rega arms are otherwise trouble free and sound great.

 

[Aman]

Yes, you CAN just buy a replacement stylus (and you should every 9-12 months), but if you are going to upGRADO to a new cartridge soon, you might as well wait it out so that you don't end up buying one stylus too many. PS: I highly recommend a Shure cartridge with a Rega tonearm - the Rega arms are known to give an audible hum and/or hiss with Grado cartridges, and even worse, their light-weight build design does not ensure a smooth tracking job. The Shure cartridge would be much better for your setup, in my opinion.

 

[memepool]

wouldn't describe Rega arms as lightweight exactly. Medium mass perhaps. Never come accross any tracking issues. The Rega is head and shoulders above almost every arm Technics have ever made themselves al though SME is a more traditional partner. Can you tell us which Technics deck / Rega arm / AT cart you have currently...

 

[jjcapurro]

Quote:

Originally Posted by memepool wouldn't describe Rega arms as lightweight exactly. Medium mass perhaps. Never come accross any tracking issues. The Rega is head and shoulders above almost every arm Technics have ever made themselves al though SME is a more traditional partner. Can you tell us which Technics deck / Rega arm / AT cart you have currently...

The table is an older direct-drive model SP10mkII with a model SH10E external power supply & a Rega RB300 tonearm. The cartridge is a model AT-ML170/OCC.

I fully plan on purchasing the shure scale for tracking weight. Are there any inexpensive tools for alignment? Anything else I should know about setup?

And I'll definately look into the Shure cartridges if they will track better.

Thanks for the replys! Keep 'em coming!

Cheers,
Jeremy

 

[jjcapurro]

Quote:

Originally Posted by memepool Sounds like a great set-up. Technics with Rega arms are quite a recent upgrade but a really good one. You should be able to find a replacement stylus for your AT easily enough on the web. AT make some decent carts. I would also check out Stanton 681 and Shure M97 / V15VMR carts when you upgrade dep on your budget. Technics tables, as with all record players, benefit from being placed on a platform isolated from external vibrations. Ideally a solid table on a concrete / stone floor or a rigid shelf bolted to the wall. You need a Shure Stylus gauge to set up the cart properly as you need to set the tracking weight for the particular stylus. If you have the Origin Live armboard for the technics this includes VTA adjustment so you are sorted there. Rega arms are otherwise trouble free and sound great.

I just looked up the Origin Live armboard, and I don't think I have this as it appears to be a product for DJ tables... which mine is not. From what my friend told me about this table it was a reasonably high end table purchased ~20 years ago & was originally sold seperately from tonearm/cart/casing so all these items were added on seperately.

Cheers,
Jeremy

 

[jjcapurro]

I found an Article that outlines my table pretty well. Mine looks almost identical to the uppermost picture (except for the tonearm). The obsidian case is bigger than it looks!

 

[memepool]

wow. you got lucky there. The SP10 was the first ever commercially realised direct drive, one of the best turntables ever to come out of Japan. Many people consider it the finest turntable ever made. These were mainly used professionally by radio staions including the BBC. The Obsidian plinth is rare for this reason because the decks were usually mounted in studio consoles.
It cost a whopping 1000 UKP in the 1970's for just the motorboard and PSU. The plinth was another 500...This was when a new Linn Sondek cost a couple of hundred pounds. To put this in perspective today a basic Linn Sondek is over 2000 pounds which would put your Technics at around 10,000 pounds or 20,000 dollars if it were even possible to buy such a thing today. But really it's priceless, the peak of Japanese engineering when they were just about to teach the rest of the world a thing or two about Hi-Fi.
The RB300 is a budget arm (200 UKP today) but revolutionary in its time (the early 80's) for it's one piece moulding giving it very low colouration and high rigidity. It still defines the standard for sub 1000 pound arms to this day and most sub 2000 dollar turntables follow the rega template built around this design.
Check out the Origin live upgrades for it when you have some money as it's performance can be greatly boosted by the structural mod and rewiring.
As you have a Rega mount all the more expensive OL arms will also fit should you ever feel the need to upgrade. And the sky is the limit really as far as this deck goes.
The AT cart you have is also one of the best AT make. It costs several hundred pounds so a replacement stylus may be more expensive than a new budget cart. If you get a new cart I would look into the Shure V15VxMR as these have just been discontinued you may be able to pick it up for around 200USD. This is a very fine cart, the best Shure have ever made. Even though you can of course fit something cheaper you should save for a decent one to do this table justice. Beyond that when you get some money check out high end Japanese moving coils from Koetsu.
Look after this deck, it's a seious investment which would make 3-4000USD and up if you were to sell it on ebay today. But it will appreciate. If they break down they are a nightmare to fix but these are build to last so you should be ok. watch out for any grinding sounds or speed instabilities.

 

[jjcapurro]

I'm trying to find somewhere that even carries a replacement stylus for my existing cart to see how much it would cost... Coming up short. Any ideas as to where I can buy new stylii?

Also, anyone have experience with the Shure M97xE? I think at the moment that will be the peak of my budget. Also, the cost at amazon for the whole cart is less than a stylus replacement... Do carts come without stylii or would it simply be a cost savings for me to buy several carts and just use the stylii/resell the cart?

 

[bigshot]

How did the stylus break? It could be that the cushioning inside the cartridge has gone solid, causing the stylus to absorb all the bumps. If that's the case, replacing the stylus will end up with the same result... and a lot of record wear in the process. The worst thing you can do is save up money for a better sounding cartridge at the expense of wearing out all your records.

I vote for getting a new cartridge, even if it you can't afford the best right now. A $40 cartridge will at least prevent your records from being damaged.

Call the folks at www.garage-a-records.com and tell them what you've got and see what they recommend. You can ship them the headshell and cartridge from your turntable, and they can mount and align the new cartrdige on your headshell for not too much more money, so you won't have to worry about that yourself.

See ya
Steve

 

[memepool]

The RB300 doesn't have a removeable headshell so in fact its best to remove it altogether when you fit a new cart, in order not to put unnecessary strain on the bearings when you fit the cart. It unscrews pretty easily.

 

[bln]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aman Yes, you CAN just buy a replacement stylus (and you should every 9-12 months)

I don't think that's necessary at all. Even if one listens to vinyl 2 hours a day, every single day (not likely), the cartridge would only have just over 700 hours of wear at the end of one year. A high-quality cartridge used properly ought to give more like twice that.

 

[tennisets]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aman Yes, you CAN just buy a replacement stylus (and you should every 9-12 months), but if you are going to upGRADO to a new cartridge soon, you might as well wait it out so that you don't end up buying one stylus too many. PS: I highly recommend a Shure cartridge with a Rega tonearm - the Rega arms are known to give an audible hum and/or hiss with Grado cartridges, and even worse, their light-weight build design does not ensure a smooth tracking job. The Shure cartridge would be much better for your setup, in my opinion.

Grado cartridges don't hum with Rega arms. They hum with Rega based turntables (which do come with Rega arms) because Regas have unshielded motors and Grados are unshielded carts. Hence, the motor's electric field causes the magnet in the cartridge to move when you get to the inner grooves (closer to the motor), causing a hum. It has to do with the motor on Rega tables, not with the tonearm. Therefore, if you want a Grado, get one! Your technics (which is a very nice table, by the way) has a shielded motor, so hum won't be a problem for you.

Also, I agree with bln: you shouldn't need to replace your stylus more than once every couple years at most.