welcome to the dark side, aka linear track tables

kap'n krunch said:

Actually , it would be The FORCE (..is with the Linear Tracking TTs), not the dark side!!!

I swore off normal TTs because of my clumsiness and the inherent danger of the "Stray bullet/oops , I bumped the arm and there is a HUGE GOUGE on my VALUABLE LP, which makes it unplayable now" (especially after it happened to my LOVELY MFSL PF DSOTM pressing that was one of my proud posessions-on "Brain Damage"...how fitting!)

So, once I had a decent rig I bought , not one but TWO "vintage" Technics SL-QL1s which were quite cheap (about 65 Euros) from some German sellers on fleabay, and I took both of them to the repair shop so they could get them functioning as soon as I received them (I have to take my back up one again since I hadn't used it in years... ).

Of course, the Ortofon P-Mount cart and stylus that I have on them are WAY more expensive than the TT itself (the OM30 stylus was like 230 Euros!!!!), but , man it was worth it...it's SWEET...

I'm never ever going back to normal TTs...

and when I grow up, I'm getting a REALLY expensive Linear tracking Clearaudio TT-2 Tonearm!!!!
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Cyber 1 said:

my friend had a SL-QL1 many many years ago, good unit, my tone arm drive belt started slipping again when launching from parked position so I need to pull her apart again and figure away too put more tension on the belt.
I'm running a Denon DL110 cartridge for now but with the mass of this tone arm I may need to good to something a bit brighter for the highs.

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Cyber 1 said:

So my pioneer PL-518 packed it in so I pulled out the old Yamaha PX-2 which I bought about 15 to 18 years ago at a garage sale and had a issue with the belt so i never ran it but now since the pioneer got a proper Viking funeral I whipped out the old PX-2, pulled here apart, tuned her all up, fired her up with a new Denon MC cartridge and must say this thing is dam sweet. After spinning some nice well pressed vinyl I must say this is one cool table. So next project is to get around to hooking up the CD-4 decoder and seeing how that goes. So who else around here has visited the dark side of these liner tables? Some feedback would be cool and I plan on a few more mods to come on this beast :banana:

gotta love garage sales :banana:

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quadsearcher said:

Tha's the table I've been using until horizontal drive started slipping too bad. Last time I opened it and did some online research, I thought the belt was OK but there was a clutch associated with it that slipped too much. I'm close to getting into it again and I'll change the RCA cables, it has some unknown non-originals and I had poor luck with any CD-4 past the first song, may be better with low cap Belden wires. If you get the drive working let me know what it took. There is a wealth of information about these tables somewhere on the 'net, I had it all saved to two laptops ago, I might see if it still works, so I can access the info without a night of google searching.

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DuncanS said:

I've a Technics SL-7 which has sat in a corner for quite a few years since it decided it wouldn't parallel track - can't bring myself to chuck it out!

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fredblue said:

would like to try a linear tracker, something along those lines, be nice to get rid of IGD etc.. I will get one one day but I like the hands on experience of manually cueing and all that too much.. on a tangent (ho ho ho) had some mates over the other night and one of them remarked how adept I was with the records even after a few drinks.. "years of practice" I told him... he said "in what? drinking or playing records?" I said "both - simultaneously!" :ugham:

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Cyber 1 said:

That's me me one more good reason to go full auto linear, it comes dam close to being CD player convenient and when ones has a wee bit of pints intake it's good to know the vinyl will not get trashed.

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fredblue said:

I've got LPs I bought in Woolies with me pocket money in the 80s that play as perfectly today as the day I got them and they've been played on a variety of manual and semi automatic tables (some good some junky) with the turntablist in a variety of states of sobriety (the 90s were so good I can't remember them) I guess I just have a steady hand.. and a wandering mind.. but I digress!
would love to see how a linear tracker deals with the kind of duff shit pressings they regularly turned out in the Quad heyday where it seems warps were pressed right in the factory rather than in a hot old shop window (I'll be damned...ffffft.. you said you were going.. ffffttt.. they bring Diamonds and rust.. ffffftt..) :music

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kap'n krunch said:

LOL!
you crack me up, Adam...
Yes, the Diamonds and Rust is...pffft... a little....pfffffft...sandpaperish.......pfffft....but I REALLY......pffftttt----APPRECIATE your gesture!!!.....pffffttttt.....




(EDIT), they deal great with warped records..as long as they are not EXTREMELY warped....I got some really...pffffffft ...warped ones that...pffffffft...play great!!!!

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fredblue said:

what is a shame is that the previous owner is a member here who I have bought quite a few Quad records off now and I know you can tell he really looked after everything (most of them are still in shrinkwrap and look like they have been played no more than a few times at most) yet you're at the mercy of the quality of the original pressings and I think the capability of the technologies was way ahead of the quality of the vinyl produced at the time, 100+ discs in the format in now and the only CD-4's I've found that are consistently really good are the Japanese ones and you either have to love Motown or Muzak in the main or you can forget it baby.. where were we? oh yeah, linear trackers, I'll get one in the new year and see if I can get CD-4 off on the right tangent

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fredblue said:

oh yeah, linear trackers, I'll get one in the new year and see if I can get CD-4 off on the right tangent

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kap'n krunch said:

Sounds GREAT, Adam--you are my HERO!!!!!!

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Cyber 1 said:

you will love the dark side (they have cookies too)

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kap'n krunch said:

Find out who'll be able to repair it..I mean, it's not "rocket science"...

I was lucky enough to get the schematics (even though I don't understand them...wish I could!) for my SL-QL1 ...maybe you can find the ones for yours and take it to a trusty repair person!

Remember that they don't make them like they used to! My baby is HEAVY!!!! (and it sounds SWEEET..even with the OM20..now , with the OM30 it's even sweeter!)

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