audio-talk

You just need to bend the bias pulley arm in towards the arm pivot housing, so that the plastic pulley wheel carrier is vertical. By doing that, the bias thread will be level and running parallel to the motor board. Apart from that, it looks pretty shoddy to me.

Managed to blag a go at my place with this turntable. Doncha just love old classic tonearms.
Running my Audio Technica VM540ML and tracking at 1.75g (about as far out as you can get the SME 3009 Series II Improved with the arm balanced at zero tracking) it sounds great.
The SME Series II was always a great moving magnet carrier. 1979, at the tender age of 21, was the last time I had one, I was running an Ortofon VMS20E, tracking at 1g on a Thorens TD160, that I’d fitted with all the Charlie Trayhorn damping arrangements and foamless springs. It was good for its time, but the breathed on Lenco/SME/AT combo knocks that particular TT/arm/cart into a cocked hat.

OK, so... after a few records it started to irritate; something not quite right with the treble, a bit dirty and bright on older vinyl records. After a bit of standing on my head and poking around at the back of the TT, I noticed that the arm was still a bit high at the rear. The micro-linear stylus profile on the AT cartridge is a tad sensitive to VTA, but has never been quite this sensitive before. The arm was already at the bottom of its height adjustment when I’d set it up, so there was nothing for it, but to double the height of the mat, by removing the resident Lenco item and substituting in its place, a cork mat atop a flat rubber mat. This gave the necessary height to level up the arm tube.

Then the blasted azimuth was wrong, due to the J shape of the arm and the straight knife edge bearing arrangement turning up/down movement into an arc. A tweak of that adjustment courtesy of a mirror on the platter, and we were away once again, with a nice silky 1970s vinyl sound now coming from the AT cart. I’d forgotten what a tweaky little bugger the SME Series II arm really is; nearly as tweaky as the Mayware unipivot. Hours of fun but definitely worth the trouble to get right. Gimbal arms such as my Rega R200 are a walk in the park in comparison.

This particular combo has the lowest groove noise I’ve heard. Virtually silent. Frankly brilliant for an idler deck. Ant has got this idler TT fettling down to a fine art.

Bit more tweaking:
Tracking now at 1.5g with 1g of bias. The recommended tracking weight for the VM540ML is 1.8 x 2.2g. The VM540’s predecessor, the AT440MLB, has a recommended tracking weight of 1g -1.8g, with 1.4g nominal, and the static and dynamic compliance of the assembly and the cartridge weight itself is identical in every way to the newer cart. Why they upped the tracking weight is a mystery as the 540ML tracks perfectly at the 1.5g I now have it set at.

The image has jumped clear of the speakers. The SME arm was never noted for its air and space, majoring instead on midrange presence, but it’s now not bad at all in the air/space department. It’s a highly responsive tonearm in terms of letting you know the results of fine adjustments. It’s taken a few hours to get the combination really singing, but it’s now doing very nicely.

Sounds like fun ... when it goes right !

Well, today I acquired the Lenco/SME 3009 Series II improved detachable headshell arm combination. I couldn’t bear to give it back.

This lovely looking vintage turntable/arm/cartridge combination, gives me everything I want from vinyl. The lack of surface noise, no rumble, no sibilance, no screech, no end-of-side distortion and the flawless tracking, produces a quality of sound from records that I’ve not heard for 40 years. It’s as if the Flat Earth never happened.
The classical LPs are coming out tonight.

Well done , Steve. Isn’t it great when you realise you’ve got your analogue front end right. Sit back and enjoy.

Greg wrote: ↑Thu Feb 06, 2020 7:38 pm Well done , Steve. Isn’t it great when you realise you’ve got your analogue front end right. Sit back and enjoy.

Thanks Greg,
You’ve all been bored to death over the years, with my rantings about “bloody vinyl” but I couldn’t be happier now, with the black stuff. A breathed on vintage idler drive motor unit, a long out of date 70s arm and an up to date cartridge with a modern profile stylus tip, have brought back the joy of listening to something that had long been a source of irritation and frustration. Strange how things work themselves out.

Yep, and if you’re like me, it’ll always be your TT you’ll go to for any serious listening. I’ve got a fine streaming set up but I still prefer the TT for ultimate atmosphere. Visited our Neal G today and his vinyl system, built by Ant (Goldring G99, not sure on the am) was head and shoulders better than his streamed option. Nice generous visit, Neal. Thank you.

At the moment I’m on a mission to replace some classic albums which I was daft enough to sell around 1976.

I’ve re-bought the ubiquitous DSOTM on a 2016 remaster and all three Nick Drakes. Need Tubular Bells, Hergest Ridge and Ommadawn (OMG how uncool) plus Rick Wakeman’s trilogy, Six Wives, Journey To The Centre Of The Earth and King Arthur (OMG even more uncool). There are a couple of Bowies I could do with, T-Rex, Electric Warrior and The Slider, Machine Head - Deep Purple and Focus, Moving waves. Cat Stevens Tea For The Tiller Man. That’s enough to be going on with.

I had to double check there, I thought that was Mark posting for a mo

simon wrote: ↑Fri Feb 07, 2020 5:00 pm I had to double check there, I thought that was Mark posting for a mo

I am of that age I’m afraid. 1972 (age 14) was when I started to realise that there was a bit more to music, than Gary Glitter and The Sweet, so some of those records listed above were the first ‘proper’ music ones I bought.

Alan Freeman on a Saturday afternoon and ‘Sounds of the Seventies’ with Anne Nightingale and Alan Black, provided the music education back then, plus of course The Old Grey Whistle Test. John Peel was still a bit inaccessible for a callow 14-15 year old.

Vinyl is so expensive that impulse buying is out of the question, so I’m sticking to what I know for the time being. Going through my records the other day, I came to the unfortunate conclusion that the records I got rid of are the ones I should have kept, and the ones I kept are the ones I should have got rid of.

Cressy Snr wrote: ↑Fri Feb 07, 2020 7:40 pm I am of that age I’m afraid. 1972 (age 14) was when I started to realise that there was a bit more to music, than Gary Glitter and The Sweet, so some of those records listed above were the first ‘proper’ music ones I bought.

Alan Freeman on a Saturday afternoon and ‘Sounds of the Seventies’ with Anne Nightingale and Alan Black, provided the music education back then, plus of course The Old Grey Whistle Test. John Peel was still a bit inaccessible for a callow 14-15 year old.

Likewise with the age thing Steve, I was 15 in 1972 and had a very similar experience through the mid-70s as I discovered music beyond the Radio1 top thirty. My first album purchase was Bowie's Ziggy Stardust (which I think you should have on your shopping list BTW). Before long my listening included Genesis, Pink Floyd, BeBop Deluxe, Tangerine Dream, Camel, Barclay James Harvest, et al. and I was taking in a lot of live music at Portsmouth Guildhall and Southampton Gaumont.

On the other hand, I don't think I would have done myself any favours keeping hold of those LPs given the crappy record player I had in my bedroom - pretty sure it had a plough instead of a stylus!

Lurking.