[Terance]

Hey!

I've stumbled over here from head-fi, and I recently sold my headphone set up to get into speakers.

Been vinyling for about 4 months now, and I am worried that I am not maintaining my turnbable enough, I am on a pretty strict budget, and I don't want this turntable to die on me!  My system is pretty quaint so far, a Technics SL-Q3 table, NAD PP2 phono stage, Sonic Impact T amp, and a pair of Athena AS-B1s.

I am looking for someone to maybe spend 15-30 minutes with me some day and show me what I need to do to my turntable (or maybe tweak it a little, I haven't changed it since I bought it off of Ebay) in order to keep it running for many years to come.

I live in wildwood, so someone close would be great.

thanks for looking,

_matt

[Wayner]

Hi,

I have a Technics SL-Q2. I'll assume yours is a direct drive like mine. There is no belt to wear out, but the shalft bushing under the plater needs to be lub'd up once in a while with some oil. Some will want you to use stuff like Slick 50 or some other real slippery stuff. I think sewing machine oil is fine.

The horizontal and vertical tone arm pivots should be be checked. If you have a scale for setting cartridge weight (highly recommended) see if the tone arm seems sluggish on the scale. It should move freely.

That's really it unless you want to get into tweeking the thing and that will take hours and hours!

 

[bpape]

I don't know what viscosity that bearing requires.  If you want something really thin but slick, you can also go to a shop that sells machinst tools and get some Starett brand oil.  It's used for veneer calipers, micrometers, dial indicator guages, etc.

Bryan

[Terance]

lots of information! I like it.

ok, the tonearm sometime squeaks, and I am worries because i haven't cleaned the stylus.

both of those sound like they are easily fixed, thanks for the damage control guys.

-matt

*also* it seems that my turntable mat is holding alot of dust, i realized this when i was cleaning my records A LOT.  Is there some kind of cheap turntable mat i can use to replace mine? Or possibly a way to clean my current mat?

[Wayner]

I wash mine in the laundry sink with dishwashing detergent and a brush. Unless the mat is injured, I wouldn't replace it.

W