Thanks for that.:cool:
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Thanks for that.:cool:
Cheers!
Here's some pics underneath my Lenco...
It was was Paul (Primalsea on here) who have me the idea for the plinth like this - he made one for his Garrard, and passed it on top me when he got his 401 Slatedecked. The frame is oak floorboards. The top is a John Lewis chopping block: http://www.johnlewis.com/230190037/Product.aspx
Glue is by No More Nails. That stuff is great for filling cracks, and for bonding stuff without a load of clamps to keep them still. Just glue, position, and leave it. I used plenty to ensure that the top and bottom were really solid.
http://homepage.mac.com/beechwoods/A...IMG_1806_s.jpg
http://homepage.mac.com/beechwoods/A...IMG_1808_s.jpg
http://homepage.mac.com/beechwoods/A...IMG_1811_s.jpg
Thanks for the photos Nick
Okey doke! Thanks for the extra pictures. Now for the extra questions.Quote:
Originally Posted by Beechwoods
What did you do when you rewired your Lenco? I'm asking this from the viewpoint of a simpleton who could probably benefit from doing the same thing but has no knowledge of how to do it! Pretty much standard fare for my questions, then.;)
Nick, if you have the time and patience, could you take me through step by step what you did and what you did it with (oo-er!).
Thanks in advance.
Peter
You know, i've GOT to get my GL75 out of the garage and give it a spin. I have some replacement bearing blocks which are harder than the originals. What I really need to go with these is a pair of small ptfe washers to help centralise the knife edges.
As for re-wiring, I think re-wiring the arm innards will be difficult, but from deck to amp I'd suggest the Van Damme pro-patch cable. I used the "two core plus screen" mic cable as used I think by Audio Origami on my Dual recently and it works well with no hum - return and screen connected together at the phono plugs and the braided screen left disconnected at the deck end, finished off with some heat-shrink.
How's the M75-ED doing? the EJ version was the best one for this arm I found, but you should find that there are good modern cartridges with high internal damping that will work (the arm has 23 grammes effective mass I understand). the Goldring 1006/1012GX used to be ok, and I still think the Denon 110 would be ok. As the K9 worked well in one of these arms I reckon the AT120E should be ok too... I wonder if the DL103 would work? ;)
Hmm - rewiring the arm was on the list, mainly due to the state of the arms I have. But, that's not first on the list, so I shall come back to it.
No problem Peter... well, firstly I got a good length of decent quality mains cable from Maplin (they do good, flexible, 2 or 3 core cable by the metre). I did a direct swap for the very lightweight 2 core cable that was already wired to the transformer on the Lenco. It was a straight replacement and a modern 2 core cable should be fine. The Lenco isn't earthed to the mains.Quote:
Originally Posted by symon
As far as the rest of the wiring is concerned, as I mentioned, I left the tonearm wiring alone. That is a job way too fiddly for mortals and if you're going to put that effort in I'd say the Lenco arm is probably worth swapping out first!
If you look at your Lenco, you'll find a transparent matchbox sized thing under the platter. This is the distribution box where the very lightweight tonearm wires are connected to the more heavyweight phono cables that go to the amp.
I removed the original phono cables coming out of the dist. box and chopped up a cheap interconnect, wiring it in place of the old one, making sure that ground replaced ground and shielded replaced shielded (ground is the braided cable without plastic shielding of it's own, shielded are the cables that have their own coloured plastic coat). I wired this interconnect to 2 phono sockets mounted on the plinth. You'll see that in the latest pics I took.
Like Dave DSJR suggests, I earthed the Yellow tonearm 'ground' wire to the 'screen' of the phono sockets. See the first two of my latest pics. I bridged (wired together) the two outer bits of the phono socket with a bit of spare wire (Green sleeved in the pic) and then wired the Yellow cable to one of the outside (or 'screen') connections on one of the sockets. The 'screen' takes the earth back to the preamp and sorts out any hum issues.
Hi Dave - I got a pair of brass 'v-blocks' from a chap on Lenco Lovers and they did an excellent job - no other modifications needed as far as I was concerned. I would say that v-blocks are a definite for changing on an old Lenco. When I took the arm apart mine had crumbled away and were pretty useless. Looked OK stability wise but I just couldn't get the arm to track properly. If anyone wants details (Peter!) of the person I got mine from just PM me...Quote:
Originally Posted by DSJR
Thinking about cartridges for the Lenco did my nut. The L75 manual recommended the M75 E, M75 EM, M75 G, and M75 MB II. My M75 ED was a cart that my dad gave me so I gave it a try. It sounded a lot better than the M55 E that I had in their previously. Better highs, less surface noise. It tracks well too, and resonant frequency is within normal limits. When I mentioned it over on Lenco Lovers a while back a couple of people thought it might not be compliant enough. All I can say is that it works for me! I do have it partnered with the light-weight Lenco headshell which may have something to do with it :)Quote:
Originally Posted by DSJR
It would be interesting to see if something as well respected as the DL103 worked with the Lenco arm. Unfortunately it is well out of my price range :( Comparatively cheap I know, and good value, but too much for an uncertain return. I am so chuffed with the sound I'm getting at the moment, for nearly nothing (< £100 total so far) that I'm wary about spoiling it by messing any further!
I can chat about GL75's as I've owned (and even sold them new.........) a few over the years and done some interesting tweaks and bodges of my own...
The M55e was apparently the very first V15 design, unless I'm mistaken. Like the V15 II it suffers a massive presence suckout, followed by a resonance peak at around 15KHz unless loaded to the gunwhales with capacitance. The 75ED has this to a far lesser extent, but like the previous 75E tracks at about 1.25g. I'm not saying to ditch it, but ripply and warped records may upset it a bit, that's all. The 75EJ has a smoothly falling top response, but the ones I tried tracked a dream at 1.8g approx in this arm and sounded fine. I did once fit a K9 and compared it to an Axis/Akito/K9. In *musical* terms the GL75 creamed the Axis, having a lovely sense of drama and "life," but the Axis did have a cleaner background but sounded dirty and dynamically restrained by comparison.
The L75 arm bearings have usually been quite good in the horizontal plane and none of mine have ever suffered stiction. The original knife edge blocks only seem to last around ten years or so and the arm gets very sick indeed if they are allowed to fail. My privately bought replacements are made of some sort of hard plastic and a similar set advertised on ebay offered a couple of tiny ptfe washers that helped to centralise the "knife edges" laterally in the housing.
When I've ever re-wired the external leads, I've usually kept the chassis earth wire separate from the two signal wires. The mic cables I've recently used are very flexible and the two inner cores carry the cartridge signal, the cable screen only connected at the phono plug. Replacing the external cables is a doddle to do.
For the mains, as you did, a smallish gauge flexible mains lead is a great idea. Following on from a forty year old review of the G99 chassis version of this drive, try putting a well insulated (!) 10W resistor of around 30 Ohms in series with the mains +'ve supply wire. It cuts the motor torque down a bit without affecting speed and I found the "rumble" harmonics are substantially reduced along with the almost violent "kick" of the idler on startup if everything is clean.
Like the Thorens 150 arms, find the right cartridge (there are one or two good ones and I suspect the Pickering XV15/625E may be another goodie, as well as the Shure 97XE but only with damper brush in use) and these old decks entertain really well.
By the way, I've yet to find a better mat for a GL75 than the supplied ribbed heavy one... A Linn felt mat is horrible and the NAS Spacemat doesn't work either.
:lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by DSJR
You're right on the money, Dave. I only have one warped record. Very warped. And the M75ED / Lenco arm wasn't happy. The M75ED / L75 arm has a resonant frequency around 8Hz. Warps are around 6-7Hz so I've read, so while 8hz is within (at the bottom) of the normally acceptable range, it is pretty close to 'warp frequency'.
Like I say I've only had one problem record though. An original South African mono 'Mr Tambourine Man' by The Byrds a friend picked up for about £2 in a South African second-hand store! He told me not to bother playing it, but I wanted to see how bad it was! :mental:
Cheers mate :cool: