I wonder if someone might help me troubleshoot a problem that has cropped up with my turntable.
I have a Project Debut 3 which I bought second hand three or four years ago and which seemed to be working perfectly well until yesterday. It is connected to a cheap Teac amp (H300, I think) via the phono input and hasn't been moved in at least two years. I'm still using what I assume was the original Ortofon 5E cart and stylus.
Last night I started playing some newly cleaned records (just distilled water and isopropyl in a Disco Anti-Stat) and noticed intermittent loss of signal on both channels. This only lasts a split second at a time and is not dependent on the record (ie different , previously fine, LPs do this and if I play them through again the drop-outs occur in different places), other inputs into the amp are working fine. It can play for several, even many, minutes at a time and then have a single or a series of many dropouts.
I think I may have noticed more hum over recent weeks too and I'm not sure if this is part of the same problem. The hum is present whenever I swtich the amp to the phono input, regardless of whether the Project is turned on (or even connected to the mains) or not. I've tried plugging the amp into a different mains outlet and, again, the problem remains. It gets much worse if I disconnect the little earthing connector but is still pretty apparent when it is firmly connected.
I've wriggled all the associated connections when a record is playing and don't seem able to induce the intermittent problem. I've also had a fiddle with the connections to the cart and they all seem securely seated.
I'm guessing that all this represents a loose connection somewhere between the cart and the soldered-on RCA outputs. Or could it be a symptom of the stylus/cart showing its age? Despite having always owned a record player of some sort, their internal workings remain something of a mystery to me: any help in tracking down and resolving this problem would be very much appreciated.
I have a Project Debut 3 which I bought second hand three or four years ago and which seemed to be working perfectly well until yesterday. It is connected to a cheap Teac amp (H300, I think) via the phono input and hasn't been moved in at least two years. I'm still using what I assume was the original Ortofon 5E cart and stylus.
Last night I started playing some newly cleaned records (just distilled water and isopropyl in a Disco Anti-Stat) and noticed intermittent loss of signal on both channels. This only lasts a split second at a time and is not dependent on the record (ie different , previously fine, LPs do this and if I play them through again the drop-outs occur in different places), other inputs into the amp are working fine. It can play for several, even many, minutes at a time and then have a single or a series of many dropouts.
I think I may have noticed more hum over recent weeks too and I'm not sure if this is part of the same problem. The hum is present whenever I swtich the amp to the phono input, regardless of whether the Project is turned on (or even connected to the mains) or not. I've tried plugging the amp into a different mains outlet and, again, the problem remains. It gets much worse if I disconnect the little earthing connector but is still pretty apparent when it is firmly connected.
I've wriggled all the associated connections when a record is playing and don't seem able to induce the intermittent problem. I've also had a fiddle with the connections to the cart and they all seem securely seated.
I'm guessing that all this represents a loose connection somewhere between the cart and the soldered-on RCA outputs. Or could it be a symptom of the stylus/cart showing its age? Despite having always owned a record player of some sort, their internal workings remain something of a mystery to me: any help in tracking down and resolving this problem would be very much appreciated.
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