I've had a 70s Pioneer PL 560 for several years, and after making crackling noises at start up and finish for the past 4 years or more, the left channel needs a recap I think, as it's quit completely.
My favourite turntable is an Acoustic Research AR XA, and if I need a shop to do a recap anyways, I'm wondering if anyone has made this into a stripped down fully manual turntable.
My AR XA is comparatively shocking underneath- electronic parts wise, apart from the motor, it looks like it has a run motor cap, and a thump suppressor cap at the motor switch. That's it.
The AR has gotten me used to a fully manual turntable.
I love the Pioneer tonearm compatability with so many of my cartridges, easy availability and affordability of extra headshells, and stylus profiles I've already collected.
Has anyone modified one to have the simplicity of an AR XA? One thing I'm considering is rca socket output, to facilitate using leads I already have of several differing capacitances.
My favourite turntable is an Acoustic Research AR XA, and if I need a shop to do a recap anyways, I'm wondering if anyone has made this into a stripped down fully manual turntable.
My AR XA is comparatively shocking underneath- electronic parts wise, apart from the motor, it looks like it has a run motor cap, and a thump suppressor cap at the motor switch. That's it.
The AR has gotten me used to a fully manual turntable.
I love the Pioneer tonearm compatability with so many of my cartridges, easy availability and affordability of extra headshells, and stylus profiles I've already collected.
Has anyone modified one to have the simplicity of an AR XA? One thing I'm considering is rca socket output, to facilitate using leads I already have of several differing capacitances.
I haven't seen that Pioneer before. It's a very interesting looking turntable. Certainly the first time I've seen a TT with an ammeter-type pitch meter.
It's your deck, but it strikes me as a real pity to take a full-featured direct drive automatic TT like this and strip it back to be "like" one of the most basic turntable types out there. There are plenty of models like that already, mostly idler and belt drives, and they definitely have their own charms. Any DD is going to be a halfhearted simulation of that.
The thing with your Pioneer is that a recap, while probably harmless in itself (and the power supply is the best place to start), may not be sufficient to eliminate the problem you have now, and is neither guaranteed to fully restore its original functionality nor get you closer to operating it as a basic AR XA type deck. With a DD, it's still going to play through the circuitry it was designed with. Any attempt to bypass that would not be a trivial operation even if possible, and the time and effort might be more fruitfully spent on getting it working the way it was designed to do.
Auto decks can be reduced to manual-only decks either through unintended loss of functionality that the owner doesn't want to deal with, broken or missing parts that can't easily be restored, or simply by the owner opting only to use the manual function, which is built right into the turntable (I assume yours included).
The crackling could just be connections in need of cleaning/resoldering (and don't overlook the phono cable, cartridge, and arm!). It could be caused by VRs or switches, solder points that need to be reflowed, or wires that have become loose (as you report total loss of a channel, a wire or part of the circuit could have disconnected competely). Those are some of the basic things to have a look for first, although the cause, and other problems that may have developed, could be something more complicated, up to and including IC failure.
If you haven't looked at the service manual, here's a link.
https://www.manualslib.com/manual/3305591/Pioneer-Pl-560.html
Thanks, I'll think a little longer on it.
I had hoped to get the tonearm wires directly run to the RCA leads, and didn't consider they wouldn't work without going through all the circuitry.
I had hoped to get the tonearm wires directly run to the RCA leads, and didn't consider they wouldn't work without going through all the circuitry.
I'm not looking at the service manual, but I doubt that tonearm wires would ever run through the circuitry in a turntable: usually it'll be to a small very basic circuit board as a junction between the fine tonearm wiring and the larger phono cable terminations at the turntable end. So from there off to the amp or phono preamp. That's all separate from the main circuitry.
But the circuitry of direct drive units is usually going to be much more complex than belt drives and idlers: you described the whole of the AR XA in a sentence, and it sounds very similar electrically to idler turntables of that era. The direct drive turntables that came through in the 1970s and 1980s had more complicated circuitry for speed control and additional features, especially after moving away from AC synchronous motors.
By the way, a lot of people aren't keen on full-automatic turntables. I happen to like them myself (quite a lot actually). If you hear that the automatic mechanism degrades the sound, that's unlikely to be accurate. The mechanical path is used to cue up the arm, lift it at the end of the record and return it to the armrest. During play, it is not in contact with moving parts or with the arm: it engages at the beginning, disengages during play, and re-engages at the end to lift and return the arm. That's my understanding, and I expect this is the case with your Pioneer too.
One thing about the conversion you're considering: again, your choice of course, but maybe a nice thing about this turntable is that it's so different from the AR-XA. Having two that operate in entirely different ways can be part of the fun. I've got an automatic Denon with electronically controlled arm, and an idler drive that is about as basic as it could possibly be. My opinion: they're both great. But then so are all my other tables - I'm beyond help.
But the circuitry of direct drive units is usually going to be much more complex than belt drives and idlers: you described the whole of the AR XA in a sentence, and it sounds very similar electrically to idler turntables of that era. The direct drive turntables that came through in the 1970s and 1980s had more complicated circuitry for speed control and additional features, especially after moving away from AC synchronous motors.
By the way, a lot of people aren't keen on full-automatic turntables. I happen to like them myself (quite a lot actually). If you hear that the automatic mechanism degrades the sound, that's unlikely to be accurate. The mechanical path is used to cue up the arm, lift it at the end of the record and return it to the armrest. During play, it is not in contact with moving parts or with the arm: it engages at the beginning, disengages during play, and re-engages at the end to lift and return the arm. That's my understanding, and I expect this is the case with your Pioneer too.
One thing about the conversion you're considering: again, your choice of course, but maybe a nice thing about this turntable is that it's so different from the AR-XA. Having two that operate in entirely different ways can be part of the fun. I've got an automatic Denon with electronically controlled arm, and an idler drive that is about as basic as it could possibly be. My opinion: they're both great. But then so are all my other tables - I'm beyond help.
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Thanks. I just feel if all the automatic tonearm stuff isn't used, it won't break down, and I don't use it anyways.
The reason I think it might be sending the tonearm signal through capacitors is it was making exactly the same crackling noises through my sub speakers before I replaced the power capacitors in their
plate amplifier power supply.
I have no emotional attachment to the auto return function, even, since I don't use that either.
If I need it, I could always use my fully automatic Denon.
If it needs work anyways, why not get the non motor functions as I prefer?
The reason I think it might be sending the tonearm signal through capacitors is it was making exactly the same crackling noises through my sub speakers before I replaced the power capacitors in their
plate amplifier power supply.
I have no emotional attachment to the auto return function, even, since I don't use that either.
If I need it, I could always use my fully automatic Denon.
If it needs work anyways, why not get the non motor functions as I prefer?
The Pioneer has the disadvantage of being a DD, but a better arm. Bet the AR sounds better. I have swapped arms on many an AR.
I have done what you are thinking of, but with a belt-drive. With the common syncronous model, the electronics are as simple as with the AR. With the DD there is a wholelot of stuff to driver the motor, you would have to identify those bits and not touch them.
dave
I assume you've checked and ruled out loose connection in the cartridge, tonearm wire, and phono cable?
Only to the extent of wiggling the wires and the continuity function in my multimeter.
At the same time (didn't occur to me yesterday - been digging around in a tape deck), if you lost a channel, that really ought to be because of something in the cart to phono cable / RCA connector pathway. A quick look would confirm that (perhaps I should say "whether") it's basically isolated from the deck power supply and the other circuitry.
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