looking for vintage type "phono" / turntable amp

[pyrroz]

Howdy! And merry XMAS and HNY.

Here is the story. My wife with her Bulgarian friend (who is the cleaning lady but they are friends - smth a greek woman would never condescent) were clearing the house and she thought of storing all my LPs (records not Gibsons!!) down the basement, along with the old marantz tt2000 turntable. In the process, the stylus broke, and the dust cover hinges are nowhere to be found, but that's the less important part. In the late august we had the worse flood in many years (or decades). One hospital neraby got converted to a large olympic dimensions swimming pool. What's worse, the sewage system got "confused" or messed up (due to zero maintenance by the incompetent authorities) and lots of "dirty" waters made it to the basement.

Ok, disaster.

We cleaned the place. Ironically, my wife did a great job at that. She and her bro led the operation. We threw away a lot of things, and we were about to throw the LPs as well. (My wife has no hate but no love either for anything hard rock, metal, etc..). When my sister saw the LPs sitting in the corner ready for the garbage, she freaked out. To be frank, I could live perfectly well even by knowing that my first record ever (Led Zeppelin II) could go for recyclement. So no biggie from my part. But my sister could not let her "western-world" pride go down like that. She took the LPs, cleaned them all, after learning the correct procedure/soaps, etc, and then bought new cases and printed the real pics on top of them. Literally she salvaged the LPs for like 200 EUR for 50 LPs!! (cost was about 4 EUR/LP!!).

So, this got me into the LP again. I found the old turntable (marantz tt2000) and gave it a good cleaning all over. The needle/stylus was broken but I found the exact replacement (after a googling marathon) and ordered it. Now I gotta solve the hinges problem, although the old ones had lost their strength and could not hold the cover. Also I have to somehow make the thing sing. I had a Rotel RA-500 integrated amp which had PHONO preamp built in. But this is in the village right now. So I am thinking of using the TV as the amp. So from what I have figured, a phono pre-amp and then RCA->SCART would suffice as input to the TV right?

[thetragichero]

the story goes that before my father could afford the amplifier that went with his stereo receiver, he plugged it into his fender deluxe reverb
I would think that the """""vibrato""""" (thanks, Leo.......) could make some of the trippy music even trippier...

anyway, I bought a cheap phono preamp off eBay (no gain control, just ins and outs and power) to hook my turntable up to my modern surround system and it sounded good for my needs. I'm no audiophile, though

[pyrroz]

hey, thanx, that's pretty much what I gather from my short googling around! will do that.

Any options for good cheap phono pre-amps amd power amps/speakers?

Will the TV set do the trick? My daughter is two years before the final college exams, so I am not exactly looking for PA-class systems

[thetragichero]

you're looking for 40-60db of gain to get to line level. depending on how comfortable you are with op amps, it would be a fairly simple circuit (for me, the only thing I'd have to source from outside my parts bin would be the rca jacks)

I love the idea of listening through the tv speakers since you already own them and they're probably located where you'd want to listen anyway

[pyrroz]

thanx hero will check everything out.

[reTrEaD]

Dec 29, 2018 16:06:57 GMT -5 thetragichero said:

you're looking for 40-60db of gain to get to line level. depending on how comfortable you are with op amps, it would be a fairly simple circuit (for me, the only thing I'd have to source from outside my parts bin would be the rca jacks)

I love the idea of listening through the tv speakers since you already own them and they're probably located where you'd want to listen anyway

In addition to the overall gain, equalization (RIAA) is also needed.

[thetragichero]

hey so I learned something new

one of these should work: www.circuitlib.com/index.php/schematics/product/34-phono-preamplifier-circuits/category_pathway-28

tl072 should be sufficient instead of the tl082

for the third circuit, a 4558/5532/other low noise bjt input op amp should be fine

[JFrankParnell]

I got this a few years ago, and it works great:
www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000H2BC4E/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[pyrroz]

great thanx!

guys just a stupid question:

I don't know if the current broken stylus has any sensitivity, I tried to produce some "sound" - noise by converting RCA to SCART and plugging to analog input in TV but didn't manage to get any sound no matter what. Is this normal?

[thetragichero]

this is what i was using



looks like two single op amps (since only 7 of the pins are connected), which leads me to believe the enclosure and maybe the transformer are the most costly parts

re your question: if your turntable needs 60dB of gain to reach line level, then that is roughly equivalent to the difference in volume between breathing (barely audible) and a vacuum cleaner (rustling leaves vs garbage disposal would also be an example. source: www.industrialnoisecontrol.com/comparative-noise-examples.htm)
so it could be the broken stylus, it could be the signal not being strong enough. i am going to mark this test inconclusive

[pyrroz]

correct!! thanx!

I got the new stylus and I get some sound when I touch the needle with my finger tip. One problem tho... still no LP to test it, hahahah ,(not in the Gibson sense ), tomorrow I'll buy a LP (whatever I find, again not in the Gibson sense ) and do more tests, and in the comming days I am expecting the Behringer Microphono PP400 like JFrankParnell suggested.

[pyrroz]

hey got the pp400 !! works like a charm!

[pyrroz]

I tested it with :

- straight headphones

- guitar amp

- TV set

plays well in all of them! now with the headphones, if you ask me, ok what's the differenence between this and listening from youtube ehmmmm I can't really tell! maybe the element of nostalgia!

Now a question :

those marks on the tonearm weight designate grams right?

[pyrroz]

I used small food weigh scale and cross checked the value of 3 grams ! I left it at that!

It is amazing what happens now and then. Back then I was like 13/14->17 and didn't care for anything like that. Just put the record playing, then the guitar on "some" "amp", and let the rock'n'roll going! Now I am all gram this, measurement that, more fine tuning than actually feeling the music hahaha yeah the fact that 35 yrs passed since then is a slight detail!

[thetragichero]

I'm pretty sure my mother always just used a penny

[JFrankParnell]

Jan 5, 2019 9:46:05 GMT -5 thetragichero said:

I'm pretty sure my mother always just used a penny

Yabbutt, you need to account for inflation and use a nickel, these days.

[newey]

my mother always just used a penny

But back then, pennies were copper. Now, they're zinc with copper plating. In the old days, it did work like a charm- we called it "tone copper". But zinc, not so much.