Topic: Help with Turntable- Elac Miracord

[crossthreaded]

I have a dumb question about a turntable. 

I only have sound out of the right channel. Could the needle be the problem?  I don't think it is, but the normal place I take audio stuff for repair said they can't work on it.  No one else local.

I'm running a Elac miracord 770h > Sherwood S-7200 with KLH L853B speakers.  Not a top of the line setup but it has sentimental value.

I have a lot of great vinyl and would like to listen to be able to listen to it through both of my speakers.

Just checked out some info on my speakers, and they are widely considered junk.  If I get some extra money I will try to go to crutchfield and upgrade them.

[kindms]

This might sound like a stupid question but have you verified that both speakers work when feeding it a different source ? Something other than the turntable.

[crossthreaded]

yeah I listen to my tapes off my computer through the same amp. 

if you pick up the turntable and rub your finger across the prong that leads to the right channel you can get the speaker to fuzz.  so I know that there is a connection from the turntable to the amp and beyond. 

I don't see any broken wires or anything underneath it, nothing obvious at least.

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

There isn't a lot to go wrong with a turntable.  It should be easy to find the problem.  It has to be the cartridge, the cable or the preamp.

The cartridge would be the first thing I would check.  You should find 4 small wires attached to the back of the cartridge and running into the arm.  Check the connections there to ensure that they are not loose or corroded where the pins and connectors mate.  Those wires are delicate and I've had one fail at the crimp after I manhandled it during a cartridge change.

If those look good, make sure the issue isn't in your phono preamp by swapping the phono output cables at the preamp inputs to see if the same channel is dead.  If the same channel is dead that would indicate that your table is OK and the preamp is bad.  If the dead channel moves with the connections to the preamp, your preamp is probably OK. 

Swap the pairs on the back of the cartridge and see if the dead channel follows a particular pair of wires.    If the dead channel moves, it's the wires through the tone arm.  Use a DVM to check for continuity on each conductor of the dead channel.  If you find no broken connection, check for a short.

I assume that you don't have a spare cartridge of you would have tried that.  If nothing above isolates the fault, one of us can probably dig up a used spare for you to try.  I think I have one but I have to dig for it.

If none of that helps, I don't know what else to try.

 

[crossthreaded]

There isn't a lot to go wrong with a turntable.  It should be easy to find the problem.  It has to be the cartridge, the cable or the preamp.

The cartridge would be the first thing I would check.  You should find 4 small wires attached to the back of the cartridge and running into the arm.  Check the connections there to ensure that they are not loose or corroded where the pins and connectors mate.  Those wires are delicate and I've had one fail at the crimp after I manhandled it during a cartridge change.

If those look good, make sure the issue isn't in your phono preamp by swapping the phono output cables at the preamp inputs to see if the same channel is dead.  If the same channel is dead that would indicate that your table is OK and the preamp is bad.  If the dead channel moves with the connections to the preamp, your preamp is probably OK. 

Swap the pairs on the back of the cartridge and see if the dead channel follows a particular pair of wires.    If the dead channel moves, it's the wires through the tone arm.  Use a DVM to check for continuity on each conductor of the dead channel.  If you find no broken connection, check for a short.

I assume that you don't have a spare cartridge of you would have tried that.  If nothing above isolates the fault, one of us can probably dig up a used spare for you to try.  I think I have one but I have to dig for it.

If none of that helps, I don't know what else to try.

 

I'll start running through it tomorrow more carefully. It looked simple but I just don't have a clue about them.  I'm a mechanic so I should be able to figure it out.


I don't have a spare catridge, I will see how much they are locally and might try that. I'm sure it is old and could probably stand to be changed anyways.

thanks for the suggestions. I'll try to troubleshoot it more in depth.  if not i guess i'll find somewhere online and ship it.

[crossthreaded]

found a place in town that could work on it, took it over there and he put a multimeter to it,

says there is a wire broken in the head.  quoted me 38 bucks to fix it.  Can't beat that.

Nice to support the local business as well instead of buying a new one online and throwing the old one away like most people

[nickgregory]

Nice to support the local business as well instead of buying a new one online and throwing the old one away like most people

true...and while I dont know anything about the brand turntable you have...at least in my case, the "vintage" unit (thorens) sounded better than the modern day one I had...

[crossthreaded]

Nice to support the local business as well instead of buying a new one online and throwing the old one away like most people

true...and while I dont know anything about the brand turntable you have...at least in my case, the "vintage" unit (thorens) sounded better than the modern day one I had...

I don't know anything about it either, but the repair guy said it was a solid unit and was worth repairing even if it needed more than just the wiring harness.  hopefully