Goldring GL75 turntable

[floppybootstomp]

Not sure if anyone's interested in this but I posted the pix on another forum so thought I may as well post them here.

Some months ago DTB (Dave The Bass, a friend of mine and occasional PCRUK forum member) kindly bestowed upon me his old Goldring GL75 turntable which is mounted in a heavy plinth he made himself.

It came with a spare chassis that was missing a few bits and pieces and I transferred the motor from extra chassis to main TT as main TT didn’t have one. Also swapped idler wheel and lubed idler wheel bearing.

It has been a lot of hard work getting this to run correctly but I'm there now and it sounds very good indeed, knocks spots off of my Hitachi DD turntable. The Goldring is aged between 30 and 50 years old.

To put the icing on the cake DTB lent me a Decca pivotal arm with the option to buy for around a hundred quid.

But after I done Johnny’s 21st disco for a reasonable fee DTB let me keep the Decca arm and on a recent visit gave me yet another Decca arm which is a bit different from the one I’m using but thus far the differences escape me as I haven’t really studied things. No matter. This, to me, is a good thing.

I serviced the motor and platter bearing and eventually fitted the Decca arm. More by luck than judgement, probably, I managed to get the spindle to arm pivot distance exactly right which is quite critical.

After I started using it, I had speed issues. It ran too slow. I posted on the Lenco Heaven Forum and using their advice/guide managed to adjust things to achieve correct speed.

That didn't last long, however, and after about four hours it was slowing again and I was experiencing wow. To cut a long story short i took some wet and dry to the idler wheel surface; platter underside and drive shaft surface then cleaned all with isopropyl alcohol.

That done the trick

I'm currently using a Nagaoka MP11 MM cartridge but will soon be changing to a Denon DL110 high output moving coil cartridge. The Denon costs £130 and is considered a budget cartridge but it has been having superb reviews since 1982 until present day.

The turntable goes through a Pro-Ject phono stage to my switcher and then to my ten watts a channel home made valve amp.

I intend to upgrade my speakers to something a little beefier in the near future.

Here’s some pix ofthe work I carried out on the turntable.

First up, take a few reference pix, always a good idea for looking at when it comes to reassembly:

Here’s what the old grease looked like, very hard:

Bitz:

Service stuff:

A huge tub of grease, I used at most a pea sized blob:

More old grease:

The hole for the new arm filed out:

DTB’s labelling:

Arm fitted lower view:

I had to file away part of the plinth to accommodate the new arms extra circumference., here is the area to be filed marked out:

And finally fitted:

And here’s the system it is part of:

The vinyl playing when I took the pix are Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ ‘Too Rye Aye’ which surprised me when I played it recently cos it really is a very good album, released 1982. Mind you, everything else he done was a bit rubbish.

And the promo 45 is The Fall’s ‘Telephone Thing’ which is quite Beefheartian. The Fall supported The Magic Band at The Royal Festival Hall when I went to see them there around 2003.

As I post I'm playing Dire Straits' 'Making Movies' album which is the only Dire Straits album I really like.

I never thought I'd go back to vinyl and had actually thrown out all my scratched albums and sold a fair few of the good ones but this has been something of a revelation, there is something about seing a platter revolve and having a nice big fold out sleeve to look at.

 

[crazylegs]

Very nice Mr Flopp's!

Don't know much about turntables but that casing really does look like it was made in a shed..

Great pics aswell. Thanks for sharing mate, bet you get a lot of pleasure out of listening to those old LP's

 

[nivrip]

Lovely stuff, Flops.

There's still a certain magic about vinyl LPs and decks. I think it's being able to SEE the whole mechanism in action. With all the modern stuff such as CD players and iPods etc you don't actually SEE anything and it loses some of its magic. (Bit like the comparison between the old steam engines with all the working bits on show and the more modern diesels and electric trains.)

Must be great to work with it.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Very nice Mr Flopp's!

Don't know much about turntables but that casing really does look like it was made in a shed..

Great pics aswell. Thanks for sharing mate, bet you get a lot of pleasure out of listening to those old LP's

Aye, would agree with you there although my 23-year-old daughter thinks it looks cool

The plinth is constructed from layers of some very heavy high density material the name of which slips my memory at this moment and some layers of marine ply. It is extremely heavy and is ideal for isolating the turntable.

I am considering spraying the whole thing matt or satin black to match the rest of the stuff.

Nivrip: Thanks for comment, I agree with you. Bottom right in those pix is a media computer with around 1400 albums recorded in mp3 format. Sounds ok but no fun, no fun...

 

[Quadophile]

Wow!

Very interesting Mr Flops. After a very long time I get to come to PC Review and start drooling, LOL! You did a wonderful job with the kit, this kind of work really needs a lot of patience when things do not go in the right direction. You got everything going your way eventually.

Before I moved to the US I had the Rega Planar 3 Turntable fitted with Ortofon VMS20 cartridge and a couple in spare. I always enjoyed the turntable more than any other source. I had about 400 albums and I used to listen to those at least once a month dedicating the whole Sunday to it. I had some of the albums in pristine condition and a comparison with the CD normally would put the Rega in a higher league. I was lucky to have the quad preamp which had a great phono input, therefore all was in favour of the vinyl.

I noticed the speakers in the picture which are in line with the rest of the equipment, and if I dare make a suggestion provided it is found practical is to pull them forward so as to have both speaker sides are in plain view. This kind of placement will allow the speakers to interact with each other and produce a better centre image and focus. The speakers as you know produce the sound with a halo effect which in turn coincides with the pattern to produce the image which overlaps to give you that centre image.

You know very well what suits YOU in your OWN environment so I am going to leave it at that.

I was very impressed by the close up photography, you did a great job indeed!

 

[muckshifter]

I am considering spraying the whole thing matt or satin black to match the rest of the stuff.

what!! paint wood?? Lacquer it ...

 

[Taffycat]

Can't help thinking it would be rather a pity to paint or lacquer it black, because it looks very unique and distinctive - in a good way, that is. It kind of sets-off the rest, so listen to your daughter on this one, 'cause it does look very cool. Bet it sounds even better!!

 

[floppybootstomp]

Thanks for comments, all.

Quad: as things are the speakers are only 2.5 metres away from my ears when I sit on my sofa so I'm reluctant to move them forward but out of interest I'll try it. The's also the aescetic (spelling?) thing to consider.

Behind the drawn curtains in the pix is a large pair of glazed patio doors, I have them on two sides of the room. Although it's very nice and gives a great feeling of light and airiness, it does present some furniture layout problems and as things are is the best solution I could come up with.

The loudspeakers (Kef Crestas) have back firing bass ports and having the curtains open or closed makes a noticeable difference to the sound.

I do intend to change the loudspeakers, probably for floorstanders but undecided whether to build or buy off the shelf at this moment. It will be neither for now cos I'm skint again

The plinth. I actually quite like it, despite my earlier comment. It's kinda like a giant wooden liquorice allsort and fairly unique. It doesn't stand out like a sore thumb in the room so I'm undecided. Think I'll leave it for now and ask visitors to comment.

Comments/views in this thread also welcome

 

[Quadophile]

From the way you describe the room it seems it is not too big and you have constraints. That is fine, we need to work around it I have a few pointers for you while you work on the placement.

• One technique that works great in a small room is to have the setup in equilateral triangle, that is to have the speakers equal distance between each other and the listener. An 8 feet triangle is a great starting point. This arrangement helps in eliminating most room anomalies and will give you a good sound stage without the room effects coming into play. The room effects could mean overloading of bass as well as reflections to smear the clean midrange and focus from the high frequencies.
• The other thing to do when you are sitting close to the back wall is to have a thick fabric hanging behind the listening position so as to eliminate most of the unwanted reflections from the back wall. You will be surprised how much improvement this can bring about.
• A smaller room poses great challenges to tame the bass so going for a floorstandar when you are not having enough room may not help in a better sound. The bass from the floorstandars could pose serious problems of overleading and making the sound muddy and boomy. You could however opt for a better stand mount monitor and a stand which is capable of filling with sand, it works wonders in damping the sound and giving body without calling for attention.
• Smaller rooms sometimes can accommodate a good musical sub as well in a better way than a floorstandar. The most musical sub that I know of and had the privilige to own were two Rel Stratas, they were superb and would disappear and not call attention to themselves. If you can find a good used sub that may be a better option than a floorstander in you given environment. I had very good results at one time when I had the smallest room inherited for audio at one time. I got the best sound pairing the Paradigm Studio Monitors and LS35a's with the Rel Strata.
• As for the front placement I have already explained that in my previous message so that too should help you get good sound. Yes, I do understand the aesthetics issue and also from the point of view of practicality, The positioning can be done when you want to listen critically and have on hand time to spare for moving it back and forth. If you can experiment and come up with the best placement you need not do this exercise again and again, you will know when the correct placement is an can use it when you feel like.

I have changed abode many times and also my system, especially speakers, in the past have owned the LS35's (Chartwell and Rogers) Magnepans and my last speakers before I moved to the US were the Kef Reference. I had experimented with a lot of placements and tweaking and therefore all the ideas I am suggesting in aforesaid paragraphs are based on the things I did myself in quest for better sound.

I would love to hear what you try and what works for you in the days and weeks to come, I will be watching this thread for sure.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Ok, I've been experimenting a little.

One thing has become clear: loudspeaker positioning is very influential on the percieved sound stage. Just moving a little bit 12"/30cm can make a difference.

So I have been moving things around and seem to have made a slight sound improvement with no detriment to the aesthetic value.

I do have an equilateral triangle between the loudspeakers and my ears, more or less, and it does make a difference.

I'm undecided about using a sub. The reason being is that the source is critical to the final sound quality. Quality subs are expensive. I could get a Tannoy active sub for £100.00 but I have a gut feeling it'll just add 'boom' rather than a controlled 'thump'.

I think a quality sub would be the only way to go.

Because of the physical arrangements of my room I think floor standers and a single small driver in a large cabinet are non-viable. The latest thing, btw, seems to be to mount a 4" Fonken full range driver in a large ported cabinet but they only work well at a greater listening distance than I have at present.

So I think I'm going to look at good quality bookshelf/stand loudspeakers, possibly some studio monitor styles, I've heard some excellent loudspeakers in recording studios, albeit expensive.

The Rogers LS35A's were always classics, originally built at a factory less than 8 miles from me btw, but they demand really silly prices now so it's doubtful I'd go for those.

Some vinyl is more superior than others, most definitely. Some recordings are crystal clear, have well defined bass, warmth, presence, the whole five yards. Others are tinny and ill-defined. Same goes for CD's, though with less difference between recordings, possibly because of the sometimes purely digital platform.

The only constant seems to be my Cambridge DAB tuner where I have 20 DAB stations tuned in, that's always pleasing, a superb sound. The tuner also has the facility to store 20 FM stations but as FM is going to be phased out in a few years I haven't bothered to tune any stations in.

Other sound sources are:

CD Player. Cambridge 640C, quite expensive to my mind at around £320.00 (although all Hi-Fi mags call this a budget price). Let's put it this way, I've heard better at half the price, I have a 20 year old Marantz CD player that sounds better.

Computer: Media homebuilt thingie. Lots of mp3's. Acceptable and at times totally surprising at how good it can sound.

Television: Optical output through digital to analogue converter: Acceptable. X-Box sounds great, both with games and DVD's, but oddly enough TV reception (digital aerial/antennae) sounds not very good at all. TV reception actually sounds better through TV speakers, which is odd.

And there we have it. Vinyl sound quality varies a great deal depending upon pressing. But when it's good, it's my preferred source.