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System #3

It's a 103 - I've captioned it now.

My wife bought it for me as a surprise birthday present about 20 years ago.

My 301 is about the same age as your 102!
 
Sorry Tony

Don't know why I said Garrard, must have Garrard on the brain. I meant HMV, The Gramaphone Company of course. Mine is an oak cased table model.
I will try & upload photos when I can get my pea-like round the complexities of dealing with my ISP (in French) etc!!

Absolutely right, you must not let the spring disengage at the end of the wind down. Since playing even a 12 inch will not completely wind down the motor I leave it there and this seems just fine; not tensioned but not completely de-tensioned.

Replacing/re-greasing the spring is a filthy & somewhat dangerous job. I had mine done for me.

You can indeed get soft loud & medium steel needles, but IME the softest (i.e.thinnest) produced now are not as soft/thin as the old ones and produce a volume nearer medium with the older ones. As a result the modern medium & loud ones are too loud and produce some distortion.

Cheers
Julian
 
Tony,

I think you should seriously consider a system No.4

dac90a.jpg


It's a Bush DAC90A - a classic Bakelite valve radio from the early 50's. Of course they don't have VHF, but they are easy to restore, cute, and work pretty well. Unrestored ones will need a safety check and a wholesale recap (sustained running with leaky capacitors will probably result in valve and output transformer damage) - but they are not difficult to do.
 
I like those Bush radios, and I've thought of getting one, though it really is something I neither need nor have anywhere to use it - I have a lovely 70s vintage Denon TU-850 (visible in the first picture of this thread) that I use for R3 now and again and I have a pretty recent Roberts radio of the classic 50s aesthetic in the bathroom for R4 - I don't really use radio at all other than that.

I've spent some time gently restoring the outer case of the HMV portable now. I managed to lift and reglue the rippled bit of rexine on the rear left and I've given the few light scuffs a bit of boot polish and given the whole thing a polish with 'Auto Glym vinyl & Rubber Care' (I had some already as it's superb on rubber turntable mats). It looks pretty much brand new now - almost too good, it's impossible to believe it's 52 years old! I'm really chuffed with it. I just need to find some nice blues and rock 'n' roll 78s now. I've got about 30 jazz records; Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Gene Amons, Gene Krupa, Artie Shaw, Jack Teagarden, Harry James, Fats Waller etc and a couple of Sinatra, so I have a start...

Tony.
 
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