Restoration of HMV STEREO 666 (1976)

[reubensm]

looks in decent shape, though quite old

Here are some close up pictures of the cartridge for your eyes. Tell you something that taking these pictures demands some serious macro photographic skill

 

[reubensm]

Sorry bro, your link did not work, even the link was not visible in the post itself. I found it only in the editing mode. BDW, I have found this link and connected the cartridge in the "Original Tetrad Wiring" method as shown in the photo....

http://www.thevoiceofmusic.com/multimedia/webgraph/CartSubs-TetradWiringModern.jpg

 

[anirban420]

The cartridge has marking in these two pins (as seen in the attached picture). If I use these two pins to connect the signal wires then I have to wire the cart in "Original Tetrad Wiring" method, and I did exactly the same. And as I can remember, the original cart of the machine was wired in this way.

 

[anirban420]

Those original speaker jacks were Philips jacks, quite common for those days. The speaker plugs for these are still available.

These Philips Jacks are no more available in Kolkata. Although I have three of them lying around, I did not used them because it makes the speakers exclusively to use in this machine only.

 

[anirban420]

After the restoration of the Electronics part, the Motor Feet Platform and Rubber Grommets of the machine, it was the time to check the functionality of the cartridge and the turntable. Cartridge worked well, sweet HUM was coming when signal lines of the cart was touched, frictional sound was coming when needle tip is touched. The play mechanism started the platter well, and stop mechanism was also working finely :yahoo::yahoo:. So, it was the VERY time to play a record :thumbsup:.

But alas.... what's the result it was..... When I dropped the needle of the machine in a LP after around 10 years, the result made me very sad.

The Record was playing in a super-fast speed yielding a robotic voice.... :sad: :sad: :indifferent14: :indifferent14:

I know where the problem is, the culprit was the speed pulley which was changed by 10 years ago and from the very beginning the pulley was faulty, correct replacement was not found in these days.

And the bad news was I did not have any spare pulley that time.....:sad::sad:

 

[reubensm]

if you check at the place where you got the cart from, he may have a spare pulley

After the restoration of the Electronics part, the Motor Feet Platform and Rubber Grommets of the machine, it was the time to check the functionality of the cartridge and the turntable. Cartridge worked well, sweet HUM was coming when signal lines of the cart was touched, frictional sound was coming when needle tip is touched. The play mechanism started the platter well, and stop mechanism was also working finely :yahoo::yahoo:. So, it was the VERY time to play a record :thumbsup:.

But alas.... what's the result it was..... When I dropped the needle of the machine in a LP after around 10 years, the result made me very sad.

The Record was playing in a super-fast speed yielding a robotic voice.... :sad: :sad: :indifferent14: :indifferent14:

I know where the problem is, the culprit was the speed pulley which was changed by 10 years ago and from the very beginning the pulley was faulty, correct replacement was not found in these days.

And the bad news was I did not have any spare pulley that time.....:sad::sad:

 

[anirban420]

if you check at the place where you got the cart from, he may have a spare pulley

Exactly I did the similar thing....

 

[anirban420]

When I opened the platter to check what is going on inside, I found two faults except the faulty pulley. The Pulley and Idler (locally it's called rubber pulley) are not balanced along their axes, and therefore they have a secondary rotational motion. To get an idea about these things please have a look of the pictures attached herewith. If the pulley or idler or both are imbalanced, it will give rise to the wow and flutter problem in the final reproduction. I need to take care of these things.

 

[anirban420]

I had an Idler of which center copper cylinder correctly sits over the axle without any imbalance, however, the rubber of that idler was hardened, thus unusable. I poped open the center copper cylinder with the help of a hammer and fitted it in the working Idler. So, The problem of Idle was solved.

 

[anirban420]

My next and probable final quest is to replace the faulty pulley. There are only two mechanics are available in Chandni Chawk who repair record player exclusively. Mr. Ilyus is one of them. I talked him over phone. He suggested me to visit his shop along with the player, he will take care of the problem. Till then, FINGER CROSSED.....

 

[anirban420]

.....AND MY 40 YEARS OLD SWEETY IS ALIVE AGAIN :yahoo: :yahoo: :yahoo: :yahoo:

Just could not resist myself to post these lines. Here is the remaining part of the story of restoration in the next post....

 

[anirban420]

As told by Ilyus Bhai yesterday, I visited his shop today with my player. He took me to his workshop. What a place that was. Time was stopped in that place in the era of 60's. Everywhere was old record player, mechanical phonograph with horn or door system (which is very rare), valve set amplifier, old radio, cassette player of early cassette age..... I just lost myself in these things.... and cannot express my joy by seeing those. You cannot believe that such place still exists in Kolkata in the year 2016. At a corner of the shop, A old man was working on a "Door-type Mechanical Phonograph". Illyus Bhai introduced me with him, his name is Musha Bhai - the record player mechanic. He has a great stock of used spare parts of these types of old machines. He tried 5-6 pulleys in my machine to check which one is giving the correct speed, obviously one of those pulley worked. Beside repairing my machine, we had a great conversation. We talked a lot about the electronics of these old machine. What I understood that he loves these old goodies from deep of his heart, and express it during his every repair work. He told me a few great lines...

".... people often ask me why do you wasting your time to these old garbage, I told them not to poke their noses on those things which they don't understand. They simply don't understand what I feel when I power up a 40-50-60 years old machine after repairing and it runs smoothly....."

..... I may not live for a long time anymore, people who know these old technology are becoming very rare now a days, I want to share with new generation whatever I know and these old things......"

These expresses his heart-ful passion towards these old machines. My machine also got the touch the heart of him, and it is performing very well without any discrepancy. And he became an inseparable part of this restoration works. Hats of you Musha Bhai..... :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :clapping: :clapping:

 

[anirban420]

Musha Bhai provided me this pulley. The pulley is superfine balanced. It does not have any secondary rotation and therefore it is very tough to understand its rotation by eyes until and unless it is touched....

 

[anirban420]

This is the picture of complete idler pulley combo. It is noticeable that there is no free play in the axle of idler....

 

[anirban420]

When I played a few records in this I felt speed accuracy with no fluctuation. The sound was obviously emphasized in mid-range, but there was a noticeable presence of BASS (not boomy, but its sweet and 'beaty') and Treable (Rolled off sharply after probably 11kHz, airiness was absent, however very crisp and focused in the range of 4-8 kHz). The sound that was coming from this machine had a oldie tonal color of 70's. But records from that era sounded great in this machine. What a presence and focus of Tabla and Mandira I heard when I played a Mono Bengali LP of Lata Mangeskar, named "AKASH PRADIP JWALE". I have exactly the same CD. LP had a greater accuracy of sound, everything was very live in that Mono recording. When I played the same album in CD, even from youtube, I feel that a cassette is playing in a machine having dirty head. Playing several LP along with their CD or youtube counterpart what I understood was that sound of a fine quality record when played in a fine quality machine should give such a sound which have a lots of presence and focus. Sound of CD is obviously very clear and sweet, But its a softer version of that music. Sound of record excites the ear by it 'presence', the same sound gives your heart a soft feather touch with clarity. But for playing old monophonic album, these types of players are unmatched...

 

[anirban420]

Here is some photo shoot of my sweet oldie

 

[anirban420]

Some more photos. These were clicked during playing of record

 

[reubensm]

What a wonderful site and a great ending.

Infact I would call it a great new beginning. These old HMV record players with their ceramic carts can sound very musical. Whatever you play on it will sound very listenable.

Not a bad idea to get some work done on the woodwork. With the restoration job which you have achieved internally, this would complete the project and get the TT back to a time when it was in the show-room.

Also not a bad idea to replace the bolt and nut on the headshell (which you would use as the Finger grip/Handle for the headshell), with something light weight and more appealing to the eye

 

[aks07]

I had a feeling that this thread is going to be memorable. In the midst of all so called high end discussions comes along this perfect thread to remind us of the simple joys in life.

I would second reubensm that you need to put your excellent skills on restoring the wood work. The way you do things I am confident that this equipment is good for next 50 years. Just stock up on needles and idlers

Voted a well deserved 5 star.

 

[reubensm]

.....AND MY 40 YEARS OLD SWEETY IS ALIVE AGAIN :yahoo: :yahoo: :yahoo: :yahoo:

Just could not resist myself to post these lines. Here is the remaining part of the story of restoration in the next post....

Well done!! :yahoo: