2009 April Archive at The Vinyl Hive

Monthly Archive for April, 2009

Rega Planar 3 Project - Part I - Tonearm

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on April 25, 2009

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continued from Rega Planar 3 with Grace Tonearm for $202

The $202 Rega Planar 3 arrived within 2 weeks of the auciton close. Everything is as expected. The seller did a nice job packing up the table, and it`s in in pretty good shape for a 25 year old unloved turntable. Doesn’t sound too good eh?

Rega Planar Packaged Shipped

As can be seen, the Glass Platter was properly removed for packing and the seller did a good job protecting the arm from swinging wildly during shipment.

Rega Planar Unpacked

Now we get to the heart of the problems with this $200 Rega. The Grace tonearm is not exactly in the best shape. As you can see it’s missing a key component. Counterweight anyone?

Grace Tonearm without Counterweight

I did plenty of research on this arm, including what kind of cables could maximize a Grace Tonearm’s potential. Here’s an idea what I had to work with:

grace tonearm 707 parts

No counterweight, no sub-weight, no lateral weight, no headshell leads, and a crack in the arm lift assembly. Hmm. In the end, I might just have to bring this Rega 3 Table back up to spec with a tried tested and true Rega RB250 or RB300 arm. To fund this, I will put the Grace arm up on ebay in ‘as-is’ condition. With the money I get for the Grace, I will be able to pay for this Rega RB250 Tonearm with upgrade RB300 counterweight and Gold RCA connectors which I won on an eBay auction for $175 US. *hint* It’s smart to search for ‘Rega RB250‘ and not to include the words tone arm. By doing so you can get auctions that are less watched or turn up less often in search results. That’s how I got the arm for such a great deal!:

RB250 Rega Tonearm with RB300 Counterweight

RB300 Counterweight Upgrade on RB250 Tone Arm

As I wait for the Grace tone arm to sell, and for the Rega RB250 to arrive, I can still look into mat options, cartridge choices and so forth. In the meantime, here is my expenditure to date:

Rega Planar 3 with Grace 707 Tonearm from eBay - $225 (with shipping)
Rega RB250 Tonearm with RB300 Counter Weight from eBay - $195 (with shipping)

continue to Part II of the Rega Project - Assembly!

Buy Vinyl in Canada - Nirvana In Utero LP

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on April 14, 2009

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I was searching around the net for places to order vinyl within Canada and I found that you can buy new records from Chapters/Indigo online. For Canadians this is great news.. It’s not readily apparent but if you go to the music section and search for “[i]artist name[/i] vinyl” you will come up with quite a few titles at decent Cdn-Dollar prices and orders over $39 ship for free. www.chapters.ca

I ordered In Utero and Rubber Soul. I have no idea what pressing etc but I got both for $23.99 (CDN) each and free shipping

Here’s the link for In Utero

Nirvana In Utero Vinyl LP for $23.99

When they arrive I’ll be sure to let you all know exactly I just bought!!

Buy Tragically Hip Vinyl LP - We Are The Same new album!

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on April 14, 2009

in Deals

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Act fast to get the limited edition Vinyl release of We Are the Same by the Tragically Hip for only $33. I’ve got a feeling they won’t last long!

Tragically Hip LP on Vinyl

I’ve seen Hip vinyl go for crazy prices, and they haven’t had a proper vinyl release since Live Between Us which can fetch upwards of $150 on the auction sites.

Tragically Hip Live Between Us Vinyl LP

Grace 707 / 727 Tonearm Cables - Where to buy?

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on April 11, 2009

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With the upcoming arrival of my new Grace 707 Tonearm, I realize that I need to get new interconnect cables to attach to the RCA jacks of the phono pre-amp. I was told by the seller, that the cables were not included. I didn’t think twice. That is until I started researching what kind of cables were needed to connect a Grace Tonearm to the RCAs. Turns out they are anything but standard.

Whereas a standard Rega arm would require a female 5-pin DIN plug that goes to an RCA finished end, the Grace arms actually have a reversed male 5-pin DIN. As well, the hot and cold are swapped on the pins. Bottom line, if you are missing the cable for your Grace tone arm you will have to find a specifically designed Grace-compliant cable to make it work. In most cases this would cost you $100+ or hours of painstaking soldering work. To my knowledge there is no other use for these interconnects in the sound industry, but luckily I have found a solution.

There is a fine gentle man who runs a site called Ultimate Cables. He make Grace compliant tonearm cable with silver series cable, Cardas din and Neutrik RCA plugs. On top of the high quality work, he sells them for the very reasonable price of $70 through his eBay store

http://stores.ebay.com/Ultimate-Cables

Grace Cardas 5-pin DIN Male Tonearm Cable

Silver Series C4 Tonearm Cardas male- Neutrik rca
Starting at: $70.00
Ultimate silver series C4 cable.
6 conductors of 22 gauge with 2 shields.
Separate ground.
Beautiful black outer nylon wrap.
Cardas male 5 pin din with high quality sleeve.
High quality electro-plated gold Neutrik RCA plugs(color coded red/black).
1.2 Meter standard length.

http://stores.ebay.com/Ultimate-Cables

Vintage Clairtone Tube Stereo Console S601 S-600 “The Empress”

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on April 2, 2009

in News and Projects

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Well I just went to see a Clairtone 601 (S-600) that I saw in a craigslist ad andI’ll be bringing it home this Friday and I can’t wait to refurbish it.

It’s definitely a gorgeous console! I believe that this Clairtone model was called the “Empress” and the 601 was from 1961. There is a very nice coffee-table book on Clairtone called “The Art of Clairtone” that has a picture of the 1960 600-S on page 56. The caption reads:

The Empress, model 600-S, introduced in 1960, closely resembles Clairtone’s first 100 series. This model boasted a 60-watt, 22 tube amplifier, a Garrard Type A turntable, and EMI speakers.

In 1962 the oiled walnut version sold for $699 and the teak model went for $749. The Empress model/600 series continued through 1963.

From a 1961 newspaper ad:

Clairtone Empress 601 Stereo Console Ad

The S601 has 16 tubes and EMI speakers (a woofer and two tweeters on each side). As for the power, I am assuming that it delivers 17 watts with its PP 6BQ5/EL84. So, in the end it looks like I’m getting the S-600.

When I went to see it for the first time the woman was upset because a lot of people wanted to part out the receiver and ditch the cabinet. It was an original piece from her father and had been in the family for years, so it made her sad to see it chopped up. When she realized I wanted to restore it, she was very happy about that. In the end I didn’t negotiate on price, I’ll give her the full $50 that she was asking. Here’s a pic of how it looks now: