audio-talk

For a fleeting moment I thought you had it sitting on the washing machine Ant - I guess that's what the spin programme is for?

Ere, thats one of hotpoints finest I'll ave yoo know!

got some more done over the last few days, now has an arm fitted

Bte designs TYPE 3 GL75/88 Acos lustre gst-1 by anthony cresswell, on Flickr

The arm board has taken 3 days to do, problem with everyone being at home is that there are so many people out in their gardens it seems rude of me to work as normal and use the router/saws ect outside and deafen everyone. So I've done a little bit each day for a short period of time so I don't antagonise someone.

Bte designs TYPE 3 GL75/88 Acos lustre gst-1 by anthony cresswell, on Flickr

The acos arm and base is rather tall, so it had to have some special attention paid. The board is a laminate of oak and sapele to give it some inherent damping, 34mm thick to also give it some mass. The arm needs to be 12mm lower than the top face of the plinth, so to facilitate this, rather than just sinking the board in i decided to machine a recess in the board itsself. in the pics its sat about a mil below the face of the plinth, the grommets havent arrived yet

Bte designs TYPE 3 GL75/88 Acos lustre gst-1 by anthony cresswell, on Flickr

This was an arse, as the recess width means that a router won't stand on the top face without the base dropping into the recess....
so, i had to hog out as much as i could with a router then use my little proxxon milling machine to mill the sides to the right dimensions, then use a little teeny 3mm end mill to mill the bottom of the recess flat. worked perfectly, but was tedious and took a good 2 hours to do. I also need to mill another small recess about half the depth of the main one in the front right wall of the recess. this is to clear the flag on the height adjustment bar.

so one day to glue up and clamp the board, another day to machine the blank to the right dimensions, another to mill out the recess. so if we discount the gluing up which i just left overnight, this board has taken about 6 hours work........
if its worth doing, its worth doing properly though....

Nice work Ant, you got bare-mad skillz bruv.

and its finished

Bte designs TYPE 3 lenco by anthony cresswell, on Flickr

the last few little jobs seem to have taken an age to do, due to orders from swmbo, and a delay on postage of various little bits and pieces. no problem with that, i was talking to a postie who is the dad of one of my sons school friends, he says it is utterly mad, worse than christmas he put it. the posties are all doing huge amounts of overtime just to try keep up with demand. another underappreciated job.

Fitted it with mi dads audio technica vm540ml which i borrowed to try the stylus on my at150sa. sounds almost identical, so when i have to replace the stylus ill get a vmn40 for it

Bte designs TYPE 3 lenco by anthony cresswell, on Flickr

The acos lustre gst-1 is an absolute doddle to set up, the base adjusts to get the s/p distance perfect which i was able to check with the dr feickert protractor, height adjustment is laughably easy, and it has azimuth adjustment which i didnt know it had. it has all adjustments covered beautifully. lovely piece of kit.

Platter mat is a 5mm thick nitrile one I got for it, cost £19.50 which was not bad, the teardrop lenco has a 3mm one on it. Much better than the nasty original one

Bte designs TYPE 3 lenco by anthony cresswell, on Flickr

the arm board oak has blended in really nicely with the oak veneer when its all been polished, and as i deliberately had the grain running at 90 degrees to the veneer grain it breaks the sea of oak up nicely without having to use another material.
I also modified the aluminium feet by fitting a threaded stud into them and inserts into the plinth so they are now height adjustable.

and lastly i got some small badges made for this one, the one mi dad has and the one savvypaul has. this one is 'the lady', mi dads is 'the little lady, and pauls is as he nicknamed it, 'the grand lady'.

haven't tested it yet.
should sound alright

In which ways is the nitrile mat better than the original Ant? And where did you get it from?

It's much more pliant and grippy than the original mat, much thicker, it kills the platter ringing about twice as fast as the the 3mm one on the other lenco which is in turn probably 3 times as fast as the original one.
I prefer the mat to grip the record, I just find I prefer it
It's this one
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/112934561647

Ant wrote: ↑Sat Apr 18, 2020 4:41 pm and lastly i got some small badges made for this one, the one mi dad has and the one savvypaul has. this one is 'the lady', mi dads is 'the little lady, and pauls is as he nicknamed it, 'the grand lady'.

haven't tested it yet.
should sound alright

How did the badge sound in the end Ant?

Cheers Ant, might just have to get one

Hi Ray, I got round to listening to it this morning, and it sounds.... Errr..... Abit metallic although words are quite finely etched.
A bit bright, if I'm honest especially when the sun is in the right place

Excellent Ant

I saw this project and thought of you, might make a nice addition to one of your builds.

https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/analogu ... ost6160624

cool ray
the deck has been in place for about a week now, i haven't listened to it extensively, but i haven't had to to like it. It is very very even top to bottom, more so than any of the other decks. the jbe has a very slight edge, is a little matter of fact in character, the jvc a little warm with a slight blur compared to the jbe, the type 2 has a little bloom compared to this one. The type 3 'just plays'. honestly, its shown up some other slight inadequacies in the type 2 teardrop, I have a good idea as to what to do with it to cure these, but that's for when i get round to it

playing some kraftwerk

Bte designs TYPE 3 lenco, gst-1, vm540ml by anthony cresswell, on Flickr

Im dead chuffed with it, im glad i decided to add these to my line of decks, going forward ill use this template with the curved rear rather than square as it makes it so much easier to position the arm without a right rear corner stuck out, and it means there is no warping of the chassis plate from heat when welding the new rear edge in.

i kind of understand why the other 2 went straight away now

An update to the deck today, I've given the vm540 ml back and fitted the lenco with a dynavector dv20x2h that I got off Nigel (shaman) of this parish.
This is the very cart that set me off with dynavectors again.
Absolutely gorgeous
This deck isn't going anywhere

I'd recommend these carts, both the high and low output (having used both) to anyone in the market for a cart in the 750 to a grand price bracket. The Hana isn't far behind at 600, but I prefer the dv, and at that sort of money I think it's all down to preference

The sound quality I'm getting today is incrementally better to my earoles than it was last week, Eds b1 and this cart have got me sat down playing music again rather than just listening to whatever swmbo has put on in the background.

All my carts bar the sl15 are Japanese, perhaps they have some sort of Japanese sound to them that I like, and 3 of the arms are also Japanese, the acos, audio technica and jvc robot arm. I wonder if there is such a thing as a Japanese or English or American or German ect sound, I've never really considered that before......

Ant wrote: ↑Mon May 04, 2020 3:28 pm I wonder if there is such a thing as a Japanese or English or American or German ect sound, I've never really considered that before......

From what I've read over the years there probably is, particularly German. But don't ask me what the differences are.

Yep,
The AT cart is now back in my SME arm. The VM540ML stylus is actually now on the body of my old AT440MLb. This body is a bit lighter and the generator has fractionally less inductance. This has given a slight lift to the top end performance. In effect I’m back with an AT440MLb cartridge. The VMN540 stylus assembly is identical in compliance to the VMN440; the only difference being the colour, ie red instead of lilac.