To
make a long story short : the weight was found inside the plinth and all the
motor needed was a thorough cleaning and lubricating.
The
SME was in great shape too. The turntable is running perfectly now in a heavy
plinth which I made from MDF (medium density fibreboard) and has an SME 3009
Series II mounted on it (the 3012 is on a Garrard right now).
The
third TD 124 in my collection (on continuous loan) is the original one (Mk I so
to speak). It came in a wooden cabinet with space for a radio and some records
beneath it.
A
rather strange tonearm was mounted, a Pickering/Stanton Unipoise, a very crude
design dating from 1959 or 1960 as far as I know. No cartridge.
I
put it into the plinth of the Austrian Mk II mentioned above but equipped it
with an SME 3009 R.
The
plinths :
Both
Mk IIs came in large original plinths (for the 12inch tonearms) which are made
of rather thin material and therefore are not the ideal choice.
Because
of the heavy and powerful motor and the idler wheel drive you can hear a lot of
noises when you use a stethoscope and put it somewhere on the original plinth.
You won¡¯t hear them from a distance, but they are definitely present.
And
because what causes these noises are most likely vibrations of different kinds,
they might affect the sound when the plinth is taking them on and lets them
travel right to the tip of the stylus.
So
the right thing to do is to build a heavy, sturdy plinth.
The
easiest approach is a simple frame made from MDF (20 mm thickness at least), a
pillar in each corner with a piece of rubber on top. These pillars are the rests
for the top plate (20 mm MDF too) in which the turntable itself is
mounted. |