[TiredChildren]

Hi there everyone.  New member here, looking for some help with a turntable that my family picked up for me.
 
I recently decided that I wanted to start picking up some vinyl versions of my favorite albums so that I can have something physical and meaningful to pass down to my kids some day.  I didn't have a turntable, so I started looking around at thrift stores.  I wasn't looking to jump right in with a really nice turntable just yet, so that's why I started at the bottom rung.  I couldn't find any turntables at all, but my sister-in-law knew that I was looking for one and found a turntable at a garage sale for $10.  She called and asked if I wanted it, so I had her grab it for me.  Turns out it's a Technics SL-1600, and it looks to be in great shape.
 
She had the owner plug it in and show her that it worked before buying, but when I got it home and hooked it up, I ran into a problem.  The unit turns on, the platter spins correctly, the auto-start and auto-stop both work well, the cartridge looks like it's in good shape, and when it's running, I can hear the needle picking up the grooves of the record.  The problem I'm having though is that nothing is coming out of the integrated RCA audio cable.  And unfortunately, I don't know enough about electronics to figure out what the issue is myself.
 
So I thought I'd come here and see if I could find some help.  I found this thread from the Head-Fi site, and that lead me to register and see if you guys have any ideas of what I can try.
 
The model of the turntable is a Technics SL-1600 (not the MK2), and the cartridge is a Pickering TL-2.  Any help would be extremely appreciated.
 
Thanks!!

 

[jpelg]

First, try the basics:
 
The RCA cables from the TT need to be plugged into a "phono preamp" (sometimes called a "phono stage"). This is necessary to bump up the turntable's signal to standard line-out levels. Alternative to a dedicated phono stage, you could be using the phono input of a receiver that has such inputs (should say "phono" on the RCA inputs). Without either of these, the TT's signal will be too low for the regular RCA inputs of your amp.
 
From the phono stage RCA outputs, you should then have another set of RCA cables plugged into an amplifier (speaker amp or headphone amp). If you are using a receiver with a phono stage AND a headphone jack built in, then you can use that alone to hear something.
 
Assuming you have all of that proper, then any source selector on the amplifier (or receiver) should be set to play from the phono inputs.
 
Welcome to Head-Fi!

 

[TiredChildren]

Thanks for the reply, jpelg!

I've been wondering if it was the lack of a phono preamp that was making it impossible to hear anything… Would the lack of one prevent any sound at all from being pushed through the receiver?  I figured that I'd at least be able to hear something coming through the receiver, even without the preamp.  But when I turn the receiver all the way up, I still don't hear anything at all.

 

[TiredChildren]

So I just got done doing a test of the turntable using a borrowed Samson S•amp headphone amp, and I was able to get a strong enough signal to the receiver to get audio out!  I guess my next step will be picking up a phono preamp and getting that all set up.
 
Thanks for the suggestion, jpelg!