LENCO - GL75 Project

[Wakefield Turntables]

Andy I glued the inner piece back into the outer metal casing . This is what I have now after I pushed the inner cartridge back into the metal rectangular casing , after I cleaned everything up first .

TBH , looking at the state of it I think this has happened before and the person who sold it to me has dubbed things up in order to get rid .

The cartridge looks ok TBH it's the generator in the inner casing that's the most important thing. A lot of companies get rid of casing altogether, look at the A95 from Ortofon and some of the high end Van dan Hul carts, several thousand quid for a cartridge with no casing!! I hope the wooden headshell stabilises things for you.

Well , I fitted the new 12mm ply baseboard today . Unfortunately this produced a problem . The motor was touching the base . God these little motors produce some amount of vibration . I had to fit 2 batons to lift the turntable away from the base . Once this was done I was rewarded with improvements in all areas and I'm well pleased . I have to say that you were right Andy , the flimsy baseboard was robbing the GL75 of some of its potential . Great upgrade

Welcome to world of turntable modding! I'm glad the mod worked. Thorens used to do the same mod with the TD150/160. I'm now beginning to believe that the Lenco really does benefit from careful vibration supression and added rigidity whenever possible. It should be possible for you to bolt your current bearing to the new base board, thus stiffening up the bearing even further, this should be pretty simple to do and not balls up the deck.

[brian2957]

The generator had come out of the metal casing . TBH it was loose in the first place , so I put a little glue in the casing and pushed it back in . I'm now waiting for the Wooden body to make an appearance and we'll take it from there . I will have to remove the base and give it a coat of paint . Judging by todays performance it will be a permanent feature Andy . Thanks for the advice

[Wakefield Turntables]

Tonights Update - The Lenco Reference Pt XXIV - End of the road.....NAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111

It is the end of the road for 2016 (nearly), approx 9 hours. The Lenco has come a long way since we first started this thread and it still has some way to go. I have recently ordered the new JICO neoSAS M55E stylus replacement for $211, a more exotic (and expensive $400) version exists but it dosen't fit my build ethos in that is the extra expense really going to give me such as massive boost. Part of the Lenco's build ethos has been to use cheap tweaks to get maximum value for money. Sometimes you just have to spend the money and sometimes with a little lateral thinking you can save a packet and get the same results. For me the new stylus was a no-brainer I was completely bowled over by the M55e's performance so any tweak to get more from the cart is always worth exploring and the cheap $41 intro stylus from JICO was a revelation for the price point. I also intend to do a little messing around with a home made isolation platform, birch ply should work well thanks very much and I might treat myself to some oak cones or some new feet, previous experiments on my 1210 and Garrard 301 have brought positive results so I'm hoping to get a similar results on the 75. I now think that I have exhausted all the tweaks available to me over on Lenco Heaven. I have found a French Lenco forum but it's contents are rather limited and not as comprehensive as LH. Bracing the bearing to increase the rigidity of its mounting has given me a small but easily heard improvement in the soundstage, total cost was under £2!!! The thing that pisses me off the most is bunk'um and there have been a few area's where I nearly got sucked in. The first being the Jean Nantais spring mod. I decided that after careful thought lots of forum research and lots of questions to Lenco guru's that this tweak was a waste of 70 Euro's. I also nearly went down the road of dampening the idler arm. I can understand why people do this because the idler arm will vibrate like a bugger if it's properly set up, set the thing up properly and your ok. Plinth composition has been another bone of contention for me. Plinth builders will happily charge MEGA ££££££ for designs that have no proof of improvement apart from the builders claims, so for me Birch ply is cheap, cheerful and does the job. I will not be making 2017's plinth from some exotic wood, or experimenting with slate. I will be making the design simple and adding mass and maybe spend some money on a very nice exotic veneer.

The tonearm is probably going to be the next area of experimentation. I've had to produce a "heath/robinson" method of mounting the tonearm to the top plate which is by no means perfect and probably impeding the performance of the 75. Running stacked platters is problematic but the benefits outweight the negatives. I really need an additional 5mm's height on the tonearm pillar and at this moment I don't have it. This means that the ability to correctly align the base of the M55e to the record surface is compromised and I have to be really careful not to use warped records as this can cause the cartridge to skip and jump . I have recently played around with the tonearm's geometry and can report back that I got a nice improvement with the soundstage so it would appear the tonearm needs sorting!! These little tweaks will keep me going for a little longer and then it's new plinth time, I have big plans for 2017 and think that the plinth will hopefully be my last major upgrade for the '75. Mulitple tonearms with several tonearm "pods" are the order of the day. The tonearm pods will be the only area of the 75 which has not been rigidly coupled. So i think that's it for now, as always......

[Wakefield Turntables]

Tonights Update - The Reference Lenco Pt XXV - El skinto Cheapo tweeks.

Well Xmas is over and my wallet is not quite as full as it was 2 weeks ago. I decided I wanted to do the base board experiment sooner rather than later. I managed to find x4 rubber feet sitting in my tool box and an old off cut of 12mm birchply. So, the idea is simple I plonked an old rubber foot under each birchply foot which lives under my Lenco 75 and then I sat and listened and made a few notes. I also did this experiment with the deck sitting on some birch ply thinking it might add an additional layer of vibration supression. Well listening to the deck with rubber feet in place sitting on the birch ply revealed a soundstage which sounded less vibrant, sucked out and generally pants. The birch ply was removed and things were returned back to normal but with the soundstage sounding just as wide as ever, maybe a little more vibrant and maybe a tad more conhesion and space between the instruments. Interestingly motor noise has always been extremely low on my deck but it now is virtually silent. The idler arm is notorious for vibration transmission and I must admit that in the past my setup has been a little off and vibration has gone throught the idler arm. This now seems to be a thing of the past. I wonder if the rubber feet have drained a little more motor vibration away from the top plate and bearing into my hifi rack? Things are sounding better than ever. So I've decided to spend a few quid on various different feet for the Lenco to see if further improvements can be made. It looks like I'm reaching the limit with regards how far to dampen the Lenco I've learned to recognise that horrible situation when you've gone too far and the soundstage goes from excellent to crap and the birchply was maybe one step too far. I'm still not fully convinced and may experiment a littl further with the birchply isolation board. Ah well, upwards and onwards........

[brian2957]

Thanks Andy . I have some birch ply to hand and I'll have a play tomorrow . I've got some Sorbathane and I'll have a look in my box to see what else there is .

[Wakefield Turntables]

Thanks Andy . I have some birch ply to hand and I'll have a play tomorrow . I've got some Sorbathane and I'll have a look in my box to see what else there is .

Sounds like a great starting point. Let me know how you get on mate!

[brian2957]

Sounds like a great starting point. Let me know how you get on mate!

Will do Andy

[stevie7v]

Happy New Year Guys and thanks for a wonderful thread. I've just completed the whole thing (so far). I bet you thought no one else was out there.

I'm about to embark on my own GL75 project although at the moment I'm working on the preamplifier, power amps and speakers. Still, 2017...

I'm not planning to go quite the same way as you guys - I'll use a different arm and MC cartridge which I guess is personal preference.

Specific to my philosophy. I think that the speaker/floor interface is crucial to the sound of the turntable and contrary to conventional thinking, I decouple my speakers rather than spike them (I use 'superballs' mounted in doorstops, the assembly inverted and bolted in in place of spikes - cheap but highly effective). To match, I plan to use the heavy T/T plinth as a vibration sink but then spike it to the floor, rather than further isolate. I look forward to seeing how that turns out.

I'm left with a question regarding your non-use of the PTP 6 plate. I'm thinking about it. Were there considerations other than cost and a desire to keep it GL? Are there SQ considerations?

On that subject, have you considered using Corian as part of the plinth?

Anyway, thanks once more for posting such a great thread, especially the indomitable Andy and Brian, your trusty sidekick. I hope it continues into 2017.

Warmest regards
Steve

[brian2957]

Thanks Steve , it's really Andy who does all the work . I'm trying to beep my GL75 as near stock as possible . There are however lots of smaller covert modifications which can be done , and are very effective at improving the SQ .

Sometime this year I hope to heavily modify another GL75 and I'll be using this thread as my guide

I've got a feeling that Andy isn't finished yet Steve

[Jimbo]

Brian did the M55e get repaired / sorted? Sorry to see it came to a bit if grief. Did you try the M44-7 cartridge with the M55 stylus?