Hello from South Africa

[Classicnewby]

Hi there! I joined this site/forum because we need advice.

We live in a sleepy town in a sleepy province of South Africa. We have just been given probably over a thousand LPs of classical music by an elderly relative. This amazing collection dates back about 60 years - there are 78's in there too, but for now we're concentrating on the 33s. Basically I am cataloguing, and finding out what's there, as a first step, but obviously we want to play the records! My husband has a TEAC TS F15 turntable. Faced with this many records in immaculate condition, our first thought was "new stylus".
That's basically our problem. We don't know what we need, or where to get it. Googling on the model of the record-player draws blanks, and I gather there are various "generic styli that may (or may not) be ok.
We do not have pots of money to spend, but we do not want to inflict any damage on the wonderful gift of music we've been given. There are bound to be some rare and valuable recordings in there, but that's a side issue. Not even the relative can tell us what treasures the several running meters of stored vinyl contains at this point.

Can anyone offer advice?

Thanks!

:help:

 

[manicm]

Hi, my dad has the same problem, we ordered a generic stylus for our 30 year old turntable but that didn't turn out too well. You'll have to check if you can fit a new cartridge - find out from a good hifi dealer.

Or save up for a decent secondhand turntable. Yes this may incur a significant cost, but see it as a family/emotional investment. After all, you have all those wonderful records, many of which will not be available on CD - I know some of our LPs were never released on CD.

 

[John Duncan]

Hello and welcome to the forum, classicnewby.

Taking a look at the model:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/703/teacgora.jpg/

I'd say that it appears to take a standard phono cartridge, so I would be inclined to buy a whole new one of those rather than try to source a stylus for what's on ther already (unless it is clear what the cartridge is. You can get something like the Audio-Technica AT95E for a reasonable amount:

which should fit without trouble and will get you started.

If you want to move on and get better replay from the collection, you may wish to look at getting a better turntable - for example, there are a number of reasonably-priced Pro-Ject models which accept a 78rpm adapter, so you can cover all the bases with one TT (though note that 78s need a different stylus...).

Good luck, and come back and let us know how you get on!

 

[Classicnewby]

Thank you for these quick responses!! Yes, that photo is indeed very like the record player in question, although ours appears to lack the power button to the extreme left.
I think I have been using words like stylus, cartridge and needle loosely and interchangeably when that may not be correct! There is a little red boxy (bit like a lego brick) plastic omponent (cartridge?) containing the actual ?stylus?needle? that detaches easily as a unit from underneath the black plastic assembly on the end of the arm. There is no manufacturer's name/number on this red thingy, and it is almost certainly not be the original one. If I can just whip that off and pop a new (recommended) one on with confidence, that would be great.

Anything I get will almost certainly have to be ordered online, I'm pretty sure that items like this will not be readily available in SA, (possibly in JHB/Pretoria or Cape Town, certainly not around here). Goes without saying that expert advice about specs, set-up, etc., will be similarly lacking.So I will need to be able to ask for exactly the thnig I need.

Until now my musical appreciation has mainly consisted of whacking a CD into the player, or possibly copying it to my laptop to have music on the go. All kinds of music. The point about these records is more in terms almost of curatorship of a life-times collection, but also to enjoy them for what they are - we have in effect been given the opportunity of an education in classical music if we care to use the resources we've been given - a quick sample look has shown many variations of certain works, and lots of boxed sets with lovely artwork and copious notes on the work, composer, and artist. It's a bit overwhelming, but the first thing is to do no harm!

I have seen some forum conversations about wieghting and skating and hissing and pick up and division and so forth that are frankly scary. Can the human ear even appreciate the products of the technology at the level that these people are discussing??

 

[John Duncan]

Before we get into the minutiae of turntable setup - does the cartridge which you removed have four pins at the back like this:

and, consequently, the arm has four little leads that run out of it to connect to the back of it?