mike stehr Posted April 26, 2008 Share Posted April 26, 2008 Anyone ever have one of these? It has a "Velvet Touch" tonearm. It's set up for stereo. It's kinda limping along with some hum issues, but it doesn't sound that bad at all. It seems to sound better than a couple cheap Dual TT's I have. It does need some help with speed selection, and some slight grumbles, plus the hum...... Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebes Posted April 26, 2008 Share Posted April 26, 2008 Cool lookng antique. Never seen one, or even heard of one. For hum, if there is a grounding wire use that. If you still have hum open up the bottom and check the tiny wires going to the rca's. Sometimes you need to ground the arm and the chassis. Also pull the pins of the cartridge and clean. For rumble try relubing the bearing. Speed selection may need some grease or oil and it looks like it has tensioning knobs so you might want to loosen them up and reset them. For all else PM Scotto, 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike stehr Posted April 26, 2008 Author Share Posted April 26, 2008 Cool lookng antique. Never seen one, or even heard of one. For hum, if there is a grounding wire use that. If you still have hum open up the bottom and check the tiny wires going to the rca's. Sometimes you need to ground the arm and the chassis. Also pull the pins of the cartridge and clean. For rumble try relubing the bearing. Speed selection may need some grease or oil and it looks like it has tensioning knobs so you might want to loosen them up and reset them. For all else PM Scotto, Oh, you ground the tonearm, too? The ground from the motor runs to a ground lug on a phono jack. I took a jumper wire and took it from there and grounded it to a integrated SS amplifier chassis. I guess it would be a Japanese version of a (RekoKut?) The Velvet touch tonearm is like a Japanese version of a Grady? I think it be a Suzuki Denki motor It needs some help with the female pins on the cartridge, I've got the rumble down to a minimum. I'll get things grounded right. For a first take this thing sounds rather good to me. It seems to be worth fixing up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Islander Posted April 26, 2008 Share Posted April 26, 2008 That looks like some sort of heavy duty broadcast turntable, built to stand up to rough use by over-caffeinated late-night DJs. Hope you can get it sounding as cool as it looks. Is it belt drive, or idler drive, or what? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kev313 Posted April 26, 2008 Share Posted April 26, 2008 NIce! Beautiful arm...looks like a Grey or an old GRace. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike stehr Posted April 27, 2008 Author Share Posted April 27, 2008 Correction: The Velvet Touch was a Japanese copy of a Gray tonearm. It's a viscous damped unipivot, and I need some more silicone or whatever oil. It's supposed to have enough resistance to have a 2 second delay when lowering to the record. I can get it adjusted to about a half second without it going skating, so it's manual lowering only. This tonearm is a beast. I guess I'm lucky enough to have the slide and the associated weights that come with it. It uses a model 380 Stanton stereo fluxvalve cartridge. It's made by Pickering. I may have to get a new stylus, they may be kinda tough to find. The sockets for the pins are trashed, and need to be resoldered, with one pin broken...oops... It uses a idler wheel, and I dunno how much the rubber has shrunken down. I have to use the 16 RPM setting, and then adjust the speed with 33 RPM records. When set at 33 and 78 RPM, the thing goes in hyper mode, with speeds way too high. Adjusted out at 16 RPM, and can adjust pitch and get it to sound right. I need a new mat....the stock one is blue and beyond toasted..... So I dunno there. I need to re-arrange the tonearm wires, or figure out how to quiet that mess down. The motor for the TT has the ground going to a RCA jack's ground lug. Shouldn't the TT motor's ground be separate to the amp's chassis? And the gound lug's in the tonearm jacks, ground to the amp through the interconnects? Most the hum is still from the TT motor. The more I listen to this old Musicmaster, the more I like it however. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebes Posted April 27, 2008 Share Posted April 27, 2008 I'm getting out of my skill depth here but I think normally the arm is grounded to the receiver with a seprate wire, except things like Rega's which have a internal ground. On my Ariston there is also a ground wire from the motor to chassis, not externally, so you could try shifting the motor ground. Idler wheels if hard can be softend, and I wouldn't be surpised ifthe idler wheel tension can be adjusted. The motor could probably use a drop or two of light machine oil if it isn't a sealed unit. There's a whole web forum devoted to these idler wheel tt's. Let me see if I can find it for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebes Posted April 27, 2008 Share Posted April 27, 2008 Tons of info here: http://www.lenco-lovers.com/forum/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike stehr Posted April 27, 2008 Author Share Posted April 27, 2008 Yep, I found that forum through a search for KS Musicmaster. Thanks, Marty. I about half tempted to register there.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike stehr Posted April 28, 2008 Author Share Posted April 28, 2008 Tonearm. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fini Posted April 28, 2008 Share Posted April 28, 2008 Looks like it's in pretty good shape, Mike. I'll have to get Clipped&Shorn to post pictures of his vintage tonearm project. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike stehr Posted April 28, 2008 Author Share Posted April 28, 2008 Cool. There isn't much to this turntable. No plastic other than the stylus tip. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike stehr Posted April 28, 2008 Author Share Posted April 28, 2008 Here's the motor with the magnet bracket thing for speed control. You notice the 3 standoff's with screw holes on the plate that bolts to the base. The base has screw holes as well. But the motor is bolted to the base using the holes with the rubber grommets. I tried using screws in those standoffs, and affixing the motor to the base pretty much direct coupled. That made for noises. I didn't know if it was right or not. But a search in the Lenco lovers site shows a guy's Musicmaster with the motor mounted the same way. http://www.lenco-lovers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1018&highlight=suziki+musicmaster Look how there is distance between those standoffs, and the base. And how the motor is mounted. That was a chore to tear apart. It needed to be tightened down anyway, the motor was a little loose. Live and learn..... The badge on the motor says Suziki Denki. Mine says "KS transcription turntable." Maybe the US version was "KS" Musicmaster. The Japanese version being "Suzuki Musicmaster". His stroboscope center is in Japanese.... I have the tonearm put back together. The cart pins had tube socket pins for female pins. I pinched more socket pins, resoldered, and then used heat shrink to isolate the pins from each other. I need to pony up 10 bucks for the silcone oil for the unipivot, monopivot, whatever. The cup with the needle has the chrome starting to pit and flake.....I suppose I can clean it out the best I can I hope for the best. I hope I don't have to hunt for a idler wheel. A new stylus, and I think I won't have a bad sounding TT. Then I'll have to build a phono stage of some sort.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike stehr Posted May 3, 2008 Author Share Posted May 3, 2008 Ok, I got everything put back together. Lubed the motor, platter bearing, and the idler wheel. Re-wired the tonearm, and twisted and cleaned up the wires. I grounded the tonearm, tonearm base, and the motor to the chassis of the amplifier. And then wired the cart with it's L/R hot and ground pins through the interconnects. No hum through the tonearm or motor. Just some air coming off of that tonearm, (RF noise?) There is some slight scoring on the platter shaft and the motor shaft from sitting or whatever. I cleaned off the scoring the best I could with some 0000 steel wool, and relubed. The platter by itself spinning without the idler wheel against it is quiet, and takes a good 30-40 seconds to come to a stop from 33 1/3 RPM. The motor itself is has a internal fan, so it won't be totally quiet, but I got it quiet enough. It is just when I couple that idler wheel against the platter, the platter starts to growl a bit. The mat helps quite a bit in damping that growl, but it's kinda still there. I need to get the silicone grease for the unipivot. I would think without proper amount of grease, the tonearm won't properly damp, and then it picks up the platter rumble. (A guess.) I still have a couple things I need to try with regard to damping things. But when I get a good clean record on there, the old beast sounds pretty damn good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike stehr Posted May 3, 2008 Author Share Posted May 3, 2008 I need to find another mat, this one is toast. It's cracked, and when I tried to wash it, it turned gruesome blue.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebes Posted May 4, 2008 Share Posted May 4, 2008 Sounds great Mike. Glad to see you've got it close to where you want it. On my Ariston (which is another one of these heavy metal platters) it growls for the first few minutes I run it and then seems to settle down with little or no discernable noise so I would suggest just letting it spin up for awhile before you starting running records. Also some people like synthetic oil, Mobil One etc., on their platter spindles. If you've got some handy you could give that a try while awaiitng the silicone lubricant. I've got some heavy rubber mats here on some of my mass market tt's. I could send you one of them just shoot me an address. Probably couldn"t get it out to you until next weekend though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nu2toobs Posted May 4, 2008 Share Posted May 4, 2008 Cork shelf liner would work good as a mat, and it'll look retro as well. I need to find another mat, this one is toast. It's cracked, and when I tried to wash it, it turned gruesome blue.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike stehr Posted January 17, 2010 Author Share Posted January 17, 2010 After sitting dormant for about a year, I decided to give the Musicmaster a little TLC. I bought a Shure SC35 cart/stylus and some silicone damping fluid. Sanded and oiled the plinth. I'm still tweaking things with the tonearm and experimenting with the VTF, spindle to pivot distance, and some slight ground noise problems. It sound rather good so far. The SC35C sounds a bit rolled-off on top. But it has a real stiff cantilever and still needs to loosen up. I've got a little scale and have VTF set at 4.1 grams. Before I had the scale I had the VTF up almost at 6 grams. The cart/stylus is good for 4-5 grams. Seems to sound good at 4 grams. However, 5.8 grams sounded just as good.....still working on that. I broke the law and had a Shure P mount 800E mounted on the Velvet Touch. I had to kinda pooge it in the cartridge slide (kasol), but once I dialed in in, it had a rather good sound. A little better on the top-end. The 800E has a elliptical stylus. The SC35C has a Sperical stylus. I'm wondering if I prefer the elliptical type........ The 800E has a VTF of .75 to 1.5 grams. A little light for this flintstone tonearm, and maybe a little rough on it, but it sure did sound good............. This thing is fun to listen too, along with old school records. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike stehr Posted January 17, 2010 Author Share Posted January 17, 2010 Another pic....... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fini Posted January 17, 2010 Share Posted January 17, 2010 Great job, maetro! Hey, I like the pennies. The copper ties in with the red of the mahogany and really brings the whole design together.* *Can you tell my wife has me watch HGTV? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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