Well, I probably should have snapped a photo of this project when it was still in the cabinet. This is a BSR C205 turntable that until a couple of days ago was happily residing in a circa 1965 The Fisher stereo console. Unfortunately, this turntable had picked up a disquieting habit of skipping at certain times when it was playing a record.
I gave the mechanism a thorough cleaning and removed the old petrified “axle grease”. You will know it when you see it. This old-style grease looks like the lubricant you might find in an automotive wheel bearing, but lighter in color and viscosity. When it gets old, nasty and stiff it causes all sorts of problems.
I re-lubricated the mechanism with modern synthetic grease from Super Lube. The improvement was immediately detectable. The tonearm worked smoothly with almost no drag.
The next step was to adjust the tonearm pressure and anti-skate. Once that was done the turntable worked much better and most of the skipping was gone. Notice is said “most”.
The problem at that point was aggravating skipping that occurred only when the tonearm was at a certain angle. In this case when the tonearm was playing about 2 inches in from the edge of the record it would skip. Very mysterious!
After ages and ages of pressure and anti-skate adjustments I had the skipping mostly solved, but the problem had “migrated”, so to speak, to a location near the center of the record. It didn’t make sense. Why would the skipping be associated with the tonearm angle? And why did the location of the skip change?
I realized that maybe the problem could be associated with the alignment of the cartridge. Notice in the photo to the right that the cartridge is held in place by 2 tiny screws. These screws not only mount the cartridge to the tonearm head, they also manage the alignment of the cartridge.
I figured that if the angle of the cartridge was twisted to the right or left that the stylus diamond might not sit in the groove of the record correctly. If the tip of the stylus is not in the groove right it might cause the tonearm to skip, jump or hop out of the groove. I was guessing that this might be exaggerated by an elliptical stylus versus a conical stylus. I vaguely recalled reading that elliptical styli are more sensitive to mis-alignment.
As it turns out, my investigations revealed that the ADC QLM 32 MKIII cartridge/stylus is, indeed, elliptical. That being the case, perhaps that was causing the problems. A mis-aligned elliptical diamond stylus might mean trouble.
A quick check using an alignment disc revealed that the cartridge was twisted and the alignment was wrong. Then, when I checked the mounting of the cartridge to the tonearm head I found something alarming.
In the photo on the right you will see two small nuts that are used to secure the cartridge to the head. The small screws that can be seen in the photo above go through the tonearm head, down through holes (of sorts) in the cartridge, and into the nuts in the image on the right.
The screws and nuts were not set through the components correctly causing one of the nuts to be tilted over to one side and not actually gripping the cartridge. The cartridge was loose and could move! The solution was simple. All I had to do was dismount the cartridge and set the screws and nuts correctly. Simple tightening of the screws and then checking with the alignment disc to assure proper setup completed the process.
At the time of this writing the BSR C205 turntable has been playing various records non-stop for hours without any skips, jumps, or hops. It seems to be working perfectly. Audiophiles are going to tell you that a BSR turntable is nothing to write home about. I will tell you that it is not as good as my other turntables. However, and this is important, the BSR C205 is a very, very nice machine and when properly set up with a good cartridge it will perform satisfactorily. I like it. The next and final step will be to return it to its owner and get it hooked up in the stereo console that it has called home for the last 35 or 40 years.
I suspect I am going to miss it a little bit.