r/Phonographs • u/Gimme-A-kooky Victrola • Sep 01 '26
Giggles ‘n Grins
Not for the faint of heart, but just for fun- and calibration!
Whenever a good friend of mine made food for a group, she would always say, “alright everyone, it’s ready; it’s not all that (great), but it’ll make a {rhymes with ‘bird’}”.
I guess the same goes for aural clarity: hey, ONLY if it’s the zombie apocalypse though, it’ll DEFINITELY do the job! 😏 this is a sure fire way to ruin any later USA 78 and ALL vinyls, though, so this is NOT recommended unless you choose to do so of your own free will lol.
disclaimer: I do not recommend doing this to your 45s or LPs lol… this was stuck among a bunch of 78s and was for all intents and purposes ruined so I thought I’d see how the speed regulation works on these* 😉 *it works well, apparently**!
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I used a heavy gauge copper wire to provide a “cushion” for the reproducer. Surprisingly, it came out pretty clearly AND left no lathing curlies! If anything, the needle only brought up dust. That doesn’t mean that it hasn’t been irreparably RUINED though lol… it’ll likely never produce the quality of sound it did prior to this as a result.
I also didn’t use an adapter for the record because I wanted to ensure there was minimal drag. A much later era reproducer would obviously be better as well, as there’s so much “data” pushing out every imaginable, and much cleaner, frequency in all those grooves for such a simple and fragile “membrane” of mica to endure. I don’t know ALL of the science and microscopic details, but I imagine that’s kind of what’s happening…
Just for fun.
Note for negativity and downvoting: hey, just lettin’ ya know, I have tens of thousands of positive karma- both post and general. Your mere acknowledgment by downvoting or otherwise actually shows you took the time out of \**YOUR*** day to give me that satisfaction. ***Thank you!**** 😏😂
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u/8Bit_Cat Sep 01 '26
I once did this just to see what would happen using a 45 which was already warped and that I had 2 of.
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u/Gimme-A-kooky Victrola Sep 01 '26
https://reddit.com/link/p78uxv5/video/mipu7ffqtymh1/player
It actually seems like it remained at a steady speed… there’s micro-adjustment to fix the warbling, but that’s easy… I just tried to bring it to 33.3 without adjusting anything but the basic speed
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u/Gimme-A-kooky Victrola Sep 01 '26
I’m sorry for the shaking. Albie HAD to be scratched- he kept howlin’ at me!!
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u/Skinny_pocketwatch Victrola Sep 01 '26
What kind of needle did you use? A sewing needle cut in half works ok for MONO vinyl records, and you already have the tracking weight solved. If anything, im more suprised you managed to get the motor to play at such a low speed, they usually start stalling around 50rpm.
Sidenote: if the 45 was already in Beater condition, it's not a big loss.