In my last post I mentioned a Zenith record player. Some folks asked for details. Here is the goodie on the right.
This is a Zenith C587 that they called an All-In-One Music System. It features a pretty good turntable, AM/FM radio, and a pair of surprisingly decent speakers. My understanding that this one was manufactured around 1973.
The turntable is a BSR C123R unit and will play all the records of the day. That includes 78 rpm lacquer discs, 45 rpm 7″ discs, 33 1/3 LPs, and very rare 16 rpm records. The stylus is a dual tip model with a diamond on one side for vinyl records and a ruby on the other for 78 rpm discs.
The radio is remarkably sensitive, and where I live it picks up the most tricky stations very well.
The BSR turntable is rather basic by modern standards, but was typical for the day. It has all the necessary adjustments for weight and tracking. It is fully automatic, which is really OK unless you are a crazy audiophile, but the one thing that it lacks is a soft-drop system. You have to be careful that you don’t accidentally crash the tonearm down onto your records.
This BSR is neither direct drive nor belt drive. As far as I know, all modern turntable are either direct or belt drive. I suspect there may be something else out there, but I am not aware of it. In the era that this turntable was built idler wheel drives were very, very common, and that is what the C123R has. The motor has a thin shaft called a “spindle” which presses against a large-ish idler wheel that has a rubber tire. The idler wheel in turn presses against the inside surface of the platter rim. There is a complicated array of levers, arms and springs that make the whole thing work with the appropriate speed control and what-not. The movement of the tonearm is also motivated by these same bits and pieces.
At first glance the mechanism seems a little Rube Goldberg, but in fact this same sort of system was used by Garrard and Dual, among others. And if you know turntables you know that Duals aren’t cheap! The one problem that you have to watch out for, if you get into these machines, is that the grease used during manufacture will harden up into stone and the turntables will be petrified in place. The fact is, a lot of old turntables (and reel-to-reel tape decks, come to think of it) are junked because they won’t operate. This is very sad because repair often requires nothing more that removing the icky old grease and replacing it with modern lubricants. There are tons of videos on YouTube about how to do this and forums such as AudioKarma are loaded with advice.
The Zenith pictured here required re-lubing. I play it regularly because it seems to me that just about the worst thing you can do is let machines such as this sit around. They need to run to be kept fresh. In fact, I played the Ventures on the Zenith earlier today, and right this instant I have the Tijuana Brass rotating on the Dual 1228. I noticed that the tonearm on the Dual was a little sluggish, so I am giving it exercise. It really does seem much happier now.