It has a L*nn Akito tonearm with a K9 cartridge and what is I believe is its original stylus. I have yet to remove its base board to see if it is 'as built' or if it has had any modifications. Apart from broken lid hinges it seems to have survived the delivery.

I have played a couple of LPs and it has skipped a couple of times. From what I have read this not uncommon for the older models because the tone arm bearings get dusty/dirty, especially if not used much. A specialist can replace them for £180 but it does need me to remove the arm and send it to him. I plan to keep 'exercising' the arm to see if it clears itself, it is already better after a few goes.

If any Forum members have experience of the deck I would be pleased to hear their thoughts.

I don't know this TT or arm well but tonearm bearings are a delicate thing. Frequently I see old turntables where the bearings are damaged, especially if exposed to any type of moisture, such as a damp basement or whatever.

One of the issues with tonearm bearings is that you want them to be as friction free as possible. So even if you manage to "work" the tonearm in a bit the bearings may not function as originally intended.

Re: The K9 cartridge, it was made for L*nn by Audio Technica and based on the long running AT95 series. I believe the stylus was a bit different than what AT sold with their own 95 series carts at the time but the generator design is an AT95 at the core level.

Pretty much any AT95 series stylus should fit the cartridge and the VM95 styli will also fit but may require re-aligning the cartridge slightly. 

I would not be using an old stylus with unknown hours on records you care about. At a minimum it should be inspected by a professional under a 200X lab microscope. The cheap USB scopes are not good enough to determine wear on the diamond facets.

Good luck with your turntable.

On close examination the cart looks as if it might have had its stylus replaced, its body colour does not match the rest of the cart. My plan is to replace the drive belt. Check the cartridge alignment. Check the speed. Remove the stylus and examine its condition. Subject to what I find, start saving for any replacements, including having the bearings replaced. I would like to make this TT as good as I can afford!

Sounds like a good plan. You may already know this but Vinyl Engine has a free printable strobe disk you can download to check the speed on any belt-drive turntable.

peterb wrote: Thanks for the tip about the strobe disc. I have consulted Vinyl Engine many times but didn't think to check for a strobe disc, I was about to use an app on my phone!

Be very careful with those phone apps. Many are not accurate because they rely on the interface between the app and the gyroscope built into the phone. They also rely on exact centering of the phone over the spindle and a perfect 50-50 weight distribution over the length of the phone.

The strobe disk will work if you print it to scale and use it properly.

These may also be of interest, particularly if you're concerned about the frequency variation of our mains supply. https://keystrobe.co.uk/ - https://keystrobe.co.uk/

Live mains frequency monitor. http://mainsfrequency.uk/fm-meter - http://mainsfrequency.uk/fm-meter

Not that stable!

Thanks for all the information.

There is a note on the Vinyl Engine Strobe page that says the print scale is unimportant, which kind of makes sense as it relying on the synchronisation of the black and white stripes with the flash of the light.

My next problem is finding an old filament lightbulb, everything is LED! 

Many "mains" LEDs will exhibit quite good 100Hz flicker. They're often better than incandescent bulbs as they have a sharper on/off, as filaments continue to glow through the zero crossing of mains voltage.

Ian

Yep, you are correct. I must have been thinking of the protractors. In any case, good luck with it.

Very true, Ian.

 Another good lamp is the neon. They do flicker more than a filament lamp at the mains frequency when powered directly from the mains.