Steve's first Lenco

[SteveTheShadow]

After acquiring a 1973 Goldring Lenco GL78 I thought I'd better
try toget it up and running with a decent modern arm, so....

Before playing about with mass damping and giving myself a hernia, I thought I'd better make a test plinth to see what all the fuss is about regarding idler driven record players.

Hunting around for some materials that could be pressed into service for nowt, I came across some 1 1/2" laminated kitchen worktop in the cellar. This was reasonably heavy high density chipboard with a coarse-grained core so I figured it would work nicely to absorb vibrations.

First job after cleaning up the deck and polishing the top plate with Auto Glym car polish was to hack off the left hand corner. This would leave room to fit the Origin Live RB251.

http://homepage.mac.com/scress1958/.Pictures/deckmarkedout.jpg

In order for the Rega's armrest projection to clear the top plate, it had to be marked with an angled cut going to the edge.



http://homepage.mac.com/scress1958/.Pictures/deckcutout.jpg

Here it is all mercilessly hacked about.


After the top plate surgery, the worktop was cut out with a slightly modified template so as to allow for the angled cut on the deck top plate, otherwise there would have been nowhere to fix the arm.

With the deck firmly fixed to the chipboard plinth and a set of black tubular legs fitted, the RB251 arm was put in place. Because of the length of the arm I had to fit it at an angle to prevent the fingerlift fouling the on/off switch.

http://homepage.mac.com/scress1958/.Pictures/deck.jpg

A couple of bits of pine strip to hide the chipboard edges and we are in business.

Quite frankly I'm stunned at the sound of this thing:gig:

Steve

[Marco]

OOOH... looks sexy, Steve!

Nice one :smoking:

Lencos are definitely a genuine classic and well worth 'fettling'. Quite frankly, thus done (in a decent plinth), they destroy most modern turntables at anything like an affordable price. I also know that in certain areas they outperform the Jap direct-drives loved by many of us on here.

Turntables are like any other piece of hi-fi equipment: it's a matter of choosing your compromises.

Enjoy - I hope you have many happy hours listening to music with it :)

Marco.

[SteveTheShadow]

Hi Marco,

Yes this TT definitely shows the Thorens TD150 a clean pair of heels in all areas. It is also a remarkably good platform for the Rega RB251 arm.

I've certainly not heard a Rega arm sound this good.

Steve

[Marco]

There could be some nice synergy going on there, Steve, with your Stanton on the Lenco - as Rega arms can so often sound rather 'grey' tonally and somewhat musically bland, especially with the stock arm cable.

Of course enjoy it as it is for now, but if you feel like fiddling some more, an arm rewire and paint strip and polish (from the likes of Audio Origami), if you didn't want to do this yourself, along with a Tecnoarm-style counterweight balance, would transform things further :)

Marco.

[Sand Dancin Donkey Walker]

Hi Steve

The Lenco's really are surprisingly good, mine shown below. You can do all sorts of things to them and there are web sites dedicated to their mods and building techniques.

Have fun and enjoy your great TT

http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll246/HyCoignitor/Audio%20Art%20of%20Sound/Lenco5-1.jpg

Can't get access to my Photobucket account from work, will post a better photo later this evening. Now sorted

Andy - SDDW

[SteveTheShadow]

Bloody hell Andy!

That's a stunner:)
I want one!

Steve

[Sand Dancin Donkey Walker]

Steve

The Lenco is varying layers of Ply, MDF and two butchers blocks. The VTA is a Pete Wriggles device. The Lenco metal toplate has thin ply bonded to the underside to make it a flush/tight fit with the plinth and the top also has Dynamat damping material fitted. There is also FIM bearings to isolate the top plinth from the base block as can be seen under the metal pillars on the outside edges, so the whole top unit gently moves when touched.
I have tried it without the FIM bearing, just sat on the base block and it is much better with the bearing in place in every respect.

I must be honest here and say I didn't do any of the work myself, but a mate of mine who is an avid TT builder and tweeker had done it for himself, although it took a while I managed to prise it out of his hands. Been really pleased with it. Sounds great and looks good too.

Here is a slightly better photo, this shows the current Platter Mat in use and cartridge fitted.

Just as a thought, you can put a quite exotic arm and cartridge on the Lenco and get some stunning results, though I have the Rega currently the cartridge is a Koetsu Black. I have heard this very Lenco running a Graham 2.2 and a Dynavector 20x. The way to go in a lot of respects. So goes to prove the Lenco is quite capable of great results, with alsorts of arm / cartridge combinations.

Enjoy and have fun with it all, you can always run one plinth while you make and alternative :).

http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll246/HyCoignitor/Audio%20Art%20of%20Sound/Lenco1.jpg

Andy - SDDW

[SteveTheShadow]

Thanks for the rundown Andy.

I've been playing records all day with the Lenco, with not a sign of fatigue.
I can truly say that this is THE first time I have ever been able to do this since 1972, when my Dad ditched our valve radiogram,
This is despite having owned some very expensive belt driven turntables during the intervening years.

Up until a few months ago when I decided to give vinyl just one final chance not to totally piss me off, I had virtually given up the black stuff.

That a long forgotten idler drive TT from the 70s could have actually got me to
want to play my records and, God forbid, get me thinking about buying some new ones is interesting to say the least.
Makes me wonder if turntable technology has made any progress at all in the last 35 years.
On this evidence, modern turntables have gone backwards. :lolsign:

Steve.

[Marco]

Tell us something we don't know, Steve! ;)

What exactly is better that's modern and worth having in hi-fi?

Enjoy :)

Marco.

(Owner of a 1970s turntable, 1950s cartridge, valve amp based on 1950s technology, and 1950s vintage Tannoys).

[Sand Dancin Donkey Walker]

To digress a touch here is the Garrard I use to own, should never have sold it, I even had the plinth for a Garrard 301 to use too.

Silly me for selling, when I should have known better :doh:.


http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll246/HyCoignitor/Audio%20Art%20of%20Sound/Garrard1.jpg


No laughing at the tonearm by the way, it looks like a joke but believe me it worked very well, and in some ways bettered the current Rega in my Lenco.
It only cost me £35 including postage from a mate of mine in Canada :)

Andy - SDDW

[The Grand Wazoo]

Andy,


No laughing at the tonearm by the way, it looks like a joke but believe me it worked very well, and in some ways bettered the current Rega in my Lenco.
It only cost me £35 including postage from a mate of mine in Canada

I've always thought that proper wood is the original 'wonder material' that is sadly under-used in hi-fi. So I can believe that arm had some special properties.

[Sand Dancin Donkey Walker]

Steve

Noticed you have the standard Rubber Mat on the deck. When you get round to it, if ever. A change of Mats is a good idea.

I bought Marco's Acromat from him, Cheers :).

I also tries the Sound Dead Steel one, but prefered the Acromat. Worth a consideration for the future I think.

Andy - SDDW

[Sand Dancin Donkey Walker]

Andy,



I've always thought that proper wood is the original 'wonder material' that is sadly under-used in hi-fi. So I can believe that arm had some special properties.

Chris

There are a couple of Tonearm manufacturers that use wood as a wand material, but they almost exclusively prohibitively expensive jobs.

I did get a reasonable listen to a Schroder (no sure of the version) and was mightily impressed, if I got the chance at reasonable cost I would have one.

Though I dare not look for one, just in case I find one and want it. Need to be a touch carefull at the mo

Andy - SDDW

[The Grand Wazoo]

All the tonearms I've seen are made from a straight grained piece of wood, but I'd have thought that there was plenty of opportunity to try taking advantage of the fact that wood is not necessarily always straight grained. I'd have thought that a curved piece or something made from a big burr - where the grain goes all over the place, would be a more attractive prospect.

[DSJR]

After acquiring a 1973 Goldring Lenco GL78 I thought I'd better
try toget it up and running with a decent modern arm, so....

Before playing about with mass damping and giving myself a hernia, I thought I'd better make a test plinth to see what all the fuss is about regarding idler driven record players.

Hunting around for some materials that could be pressed into service for nowt, I came across some 1 1/2" laminated kitchen worktop in the cellar. This was reasonably heavy high density chipboard with a coarse-grained core so I figured it would work nicely to absorb vibrations.

First job after cleaning up the deck and polishing the top plate with Auto Glym car polish was to hack off the left hand corner. This would leave room to fit the Origin Live RB251.

http://homepage.mac.com/scress1958/.Pictures/deckmarkedout.jpg

In order for the Rega's armrest projection to clear the top plate, it had to be marked with an angled cut going to the edge.



http://homepage.mac.com/scress1958/.Pictures/deckcutout.jpg

Here it is all mercilessly hacked about.


After the top plate surgery, the worktop was cut out with a slightly modified template so as to allow for the angled cut on the deck top plate, otherwise there would have been nowhere to fix the arm.

With the deck firmly fixed to the chipboard plinth and a set of black tubular legs fitted, the RB251 arm was put in place. Because of the length of the arm I had to fit it at an angle to prevent the fingerlift fouling the on/off switch.

http://homepage.mac.com/scress1958/.Pictures/deck.jpg

A couple of bits of pine strip to hide the chipboard edges and we are in business.

Quite frankly I'm stunned at the sound of this thing:gig:

Steve

What a wonderful way to annihilate and butcher a wonderful old classic!!!!! :(

Why didn't you just get replacement bearing blocks for the arm, re-wire from terminals under the platter to the amp and buy an M3D and fit an N21 stylus to it???? You'd have got an even better sound! What's in the Rega? A bloody Stanton - perfect for the L78 arm!

Rega RB arms, bane of our lives :( Will you people never learn????? :doh:

[SteveTheShadow]

What a wonderful way to annihilate and butcher a wonderful old classic!!!!! :(

Why didn't you just get replacement bearing blocks for the arm, re-wire from terminals under the platter to the amp

For your information the deck came without an arm. It was only the top plate, platter and motor.
I have not as you put it "annihilated" anything. The TT was, in fact, rescued from the back of a friend's shed
It would have ended up at the tip eventually :steam:


buy an M3D and fit an N21 stylus to it???? You'd have got an even better sound!

Sez who?


Rega RB arms, bane of our lives :( Will you people never learn????? :doh:

The Rega is a damn good arm and sounds superb on the Lenco. People have been whinging about this arm since 1983!
If they had chrome plated it and charged £1000 back then, maybe it would have silenced the snobs.

[Beechwoods]

Steve - I think your Lenco looks fantastic; I've been a big fan of theirs for a while and just couldn't believe the sound I got from my unmodified L75. For a long time I considered a replacement arm but the cost put me off. My Lenco cost me £55 plus £30 for the plinth materials, and I wasn't really up spending more than that on the arm!

The arm on the heavy-platter Lenco's was always the weakest link. They can sound great even with the stock arm, but it's great to see the platter paired with other arms. Lenco-based systems punch well above their weight; it's great to see another convert here!

[Marco]

Steve,

I think you've misjudged the 'tone' of Dave (DSJR's) post - easily done when you don't know him that well :)

No worries though, I'm sure that Dave will clear things up when he pops back later :smoking:

Marco.

[DSJR]

Apologies!!!!!!!!!!!!! - [grovels hard...] I was fighting "Word 2003" on a college write-up - the headers and footers had a mind of their own and kept moving inserted images around - gggrrrr!!!!!!! When I came to correct a typo or two this morning, half the changes I'd made hadn't been saved (despite me asking it to save them) so I spent all morning re-typing and inserting (and re-setting the headers and footers too...)

As the GL78 came without arm I'll forgive you carving up the top-plate ;), but IN MY OPINION ONLY I've had enough of the L75/78 arms being slagged off all the time... I freely admit that I wouldn't put an expensive MC in one, but a DL110 should be fine and theoetically the 23 grammes effective mass should be ideal for a DL103..... . On the MM side, although the arm appears massive (it is a bit), the bearing friction is low once the knife edges are fixed and the thing is more than stable enough for a Linn K9 and Goldring 1012GX (tried them and they're fine in use), which means an AT120E and possibly even a 440MLa (untried) should work. The springy counterweight apparently needs to be glued up, but IMO I'd wrap some cotton thread in the "join" to stiffen it but still retaining some isolation. many rear stubs sag over the years and the cotton trick may well restore appearances.

The L75/78 and 69 wear out their knife edge bearings after 10 years or so, but replacements are either from Technical & General (original ones) or someone on eBay does harder alternatives. All I'd add to these are two PTFE washers, one each side of the arm-tube, to maintain centering of the arm when using the harder replacement V blocks

Back in the day, I sold hundreds of Stantons. The 500EE had a life and zip to it which many heavyweight arms loved, although 'Choice all but wrote it off. I bought a Pickering version (500 TE?) last year from the York crowd who distribute them and at 1.25 it sounded as I remembered but was too microphonic in the Dual..

My caustic comments on the Rega arms were more tongue in cheek than anything. Of course they're great arms, although they're getting pricey now. They always were a good money-spinner for Rega (more profitable than the P2 and P3 turntable units they're fitted to), but IMO they're so boring - they crop up everywhere (familiarity breeding an "atitude" - don't mind me too much:)).


Something you might like to try - put a resistor (10W 10 - 25 Ohm) in the mains feed (insulate it very carefully and keep the legs away from any metalwork). This reduces the start-up "kick," and also further reduces rumble. Someone on PFM claimed that it took some of the drama out, but the effect on the torque is so low I doubt it could make much difference at a sub-3 gramme playing weight.

Humble apologies for my post earlier. I just like to work with what's there (same as on a TD150 with original arm) but as you've rightly corrected me, in your case it was either the skip or make it usable... I can't talk anyway, as my Quad II's have been completely rebuilt by Glenn Croft with fancy resistors and a regulated valve power supply fitted, thus making it unsellable to a Quad fanatic who wants it all original....

[SteveTheShadow]

Hi Guys

Marco, you are right. I did possibly read the tone of Dave's post wrongly, but then maybe I ought to have made it clear at the beginning that the TT was minus the arm. That would have avoided confusion.

Dave
I've nothing against the L75 arm, indeed a mate of mine had a GL75, back in 1974 as a present from his parents for getting 6 O levels. He used to take it round to our local Friday night boogie at our mutual female friend Gillian's place, with his big Sansui receiver and Goodmans Maxim speakers.
Along with about six or seven other boys and girls, we used to play prog rock and chew the fat. All very tame but we enjoyed ourselves.

His system always sounded great, with a beautiful big, smooth and sweet sound.
My pioneer PL12D was alright but not in the same league as Simon's Lenco.
Trouble was in those days we thought it was his speakers that made his gear sound so good. The TT was not regarded as important as long as it went round at the right speed and did not rumble.Unfortunately the rest is history of course, until now when those long forgotten decks are being reborn, to give endless listening pleasure to those in the know.

Steve