Premier Rock Forum

motorbike guy wrote: Fri Oct 14, 2022 7:07 am

Teacher's Pet wrote: Thu Oct 13, 2022 11:31 am I inherited an Empire 208 turntable, circa 1961. Anybody have any experience with these?
It's missing the counterweight, cartridge, and stylus. The old mat is rumpled and the belt is loose.

It's dusty but gorgeous. Cool wooden plinth. I'm just not sure I need to own and maintain a turntable this old.
I'm wondering if I should just try to liquidate it, as the person who gave it to me could use the cash.

Then again, I might already have a cartridge that fits, a new belt doesn't cost too much, the motor seems to be working fine, maybe I should invest minimally and see how it goes? Maybe sell it after it's running again?

This is a big heavy "mass loaded" style old fashioned turntable, along the lines of the old Lencos, Garrards, Thorens, etc. The tonearm is garbage, so if it is missing parts, I would replace it and you could have a decent sounding TT. You may, however, find that there are parts out there if you search hard enough.

If the motor turns smoothly, the platter turns smoothly (check to see that the bearing is oiled) and you can find the right sized belt for it, it is a lovely old record spinner.

I have seen pictures of these with all sorts of tonearms. You have to build an adapter plate to bolt onto the chassis where the existing tonearm is, but otherwise should be pretty straighforward.

This guy strips them down and re-makes them into a modern hifi record player:
https://www.analog-engineering.net/ae2008.htm

Teacher's Pet wrote: Fri Jan 27, 2023 2:04 pm

motorbike guy wrote: Fri Oct 14, 2022 7:07 am

Teacher's Pet wrote: Thu Oct 13, 2022 11:31 am I inherited an Empire 208 turntable, circa 1961. Anybody have any experience with these?
It's missing the counterweight, cartridge, and stylus. The old mat is rumpled and the belt is loose.

It's dusty but gorgeous. Cool wooden plinth. I'm just not sure I need to own and maintain a turntable this old.
I'm wondering if I should just try to liquidate it, as the person who gave it to me could use the cash.

Then again, I might already have a cartridge that fits, a new belt doesn't cost too much, the motor seems to be working fine, maybe I should invest minimally and see how it goes? Maybe sell it after it's running again?

This is a big heavy "mass loaded" style old fashioned turntable, along the lines of the old Lencos, Garrards, Thorens, etc. The tonearm is garbage, so if it is missing parts, I would replace it and you could have a decent sounding TT. You may, however, find that there are parts out there if you search hard enough.

If the motor turns smoothly, the platter turns smoothly (check to see that the bearing is oiled) and you can find the right sized belt for it, it is a lovely old record spinner.

I have seen pictures of these with all sorts of tonearms. You have to build an adapter plate to bolt onto the chassis where the existing tonearm is, but otherwise should be pretty straighforward.

This guy strips them down and re-makes them into a modern hifi record player:
https://www.analog-engineering.net/ae2008.htm

Thanks for the info, I have an update/question:

I replaced the pilot light, belt and oil, but I can't spring for the new tone arm right now.
I had an old school (period-correct?) cartridge/stylus handy and it fit the headshell, so I put it in and it's all working.

EXCEPT that the ancient cartridge wiring scheme does not follow the red/blue/green/white color convention, and I get a buzz/noise when touching the headshell.
Do I have my cartridge wires in the wrong place? Or do I need to check the ground wire?
It's very quiet when I'm not touching it.

And it does sound great, I was kinda dazzled.

uglysound wrote: Mon Apr 24, 2023 12:51 pm Any ideas for a decent cassette deck or CD player that is not full rack width? Like 13" wide at the most. Would be really cool if they stacked on each other. Prices on the nice little Marantz stereo field recorders seem to have blown up for some reason.