First, let me say what a great site this is. I've been on other forums for both audio- and non-audio related topics, and this is by far the most enjoyable and helpful. Of course, that's because of the people that populate this space.

Now to my post: A few weeks back I picked up a Beogram 1800 from a coworker who had it stowed in an attic. It looked in pretty bad shape. However, after a little bit of work (and some help from this site on reassembling the dust cover), I was able to play it tonight. It sounded. . . . really good. . . but not "great." So here are my questions:

1. Is there anything on the 1800 that I can (or should try to) adjust? I'm still a relatively newbie to turntables, but I've heard about tracking force and platter speed being important.The only thing I did was adjust the pulley (the part that the belt loops around from the platter) so that it was no longer rubbing up against the casework when spinning (made an awful noise, so I loosened the one screw and pulled it ever slightly back from the platter before retightening).

2. The cartridge is the MMC5. I have no idea if the "good but not great" sound is due to the age and/or quality of the cartridge, and I have no idea how to find out. Obviously, I don't want to just unecessarily buy another cartridge , but I will be doing some vinyl-to-cd transfers that I want to come out as pristine as possible, so I also don't want to settle. Thoughts?

Fwiw: The rest of my system consists of an old B&K ST120 amp, an Anthem TLP-1 pre-amp tuner, Musical Fidelity V-LPS phono stage, and Dahlquist DQ8 speakers.

Matt

The MMC5 is the bottom of the range and it notices! It is also likely to be suffering the ravages of time.

You can either 1) Live with it or 2) Buy a new Sound-smith SMMC4 to replace it ($149 plus shipping and taxes) or 3) Send your MMC5 to Axel at  http://www.schallplattennadeln.de/ and have him rework it to the same or higher spec.

3) will be cheaper than 2) but 2) gets you a new cartridge with a warranty.

The choice, as they say, is yours!!!

THIS THREAD also shows how to set the tracking force on these Beogram types. I would start with this first to see if it makes any improvement - tracking force for MMC5 is 1.5 g.

Chris.

Thanks Graham, I was considering a Sound-Smith cartridge, but then was also wondering about trying to find a used original B&O model of a lower number than my MMC5. I guess the risk with going used is not knowing what you're getting. . .

And Chris, regarding the tracking force, my Beogram is already set at 1.5 g. Would I still need to go through the procedure outline in the thread?

Thanks.

Buying used cartridges is not recommended as even the newest ones will be around 15-20 years old and can be suffering the ravages of time even if they have never been used, they can change hands for silly money too.

Simon

Okay, no used cartridges. Does anyone know of a person in the U.S. who rebuilds B&O cartridges?

Also, can I get away with a natural bristle artist's brush for dry cleaning the stylus?

I use a number 1 windsor newton round to clean my stylus. seems to work just fine.

Mine is some kind of hair ( not sure ) definately not a synthetic, but a synthertic would probably work as well.

As for cleaning records. If they are really dirty and some of the ones  I recovered from my mothers basement were at least 20 = years without a cleaning I used mild dishsoaop warm wather and a soft rag. For normal cleaning CD disk cleaner should work or the eyeglasses cleaner they sell works as well.

In fact I use eyeglass cleaner on the stylus from time to time if it begins to sound dull or appears dirty.

dbxdx5:

And Chris, regarding the tracking force, my Beogram is already set at 1.5 g. Would I still need to go through the procedure outline in the thread?

Thanks. 

I would as you are assuming that the last owner set it correctly in the first place.

Also check for any hardened crud under magnification and if so then use jewellery cleaning solution on a fine brush to clean it off. Use it very sparingly & always brush towards the tip of the stylus away from the cartridge body as any solution finding its way into the cartridge body could permanantly damage the internal suspension.

Chris.

Thanks, Chris (and everyone else).

On a somewhat related note, does anyone have a copy of the owner's manual for the 1800 that they can share? I found one on Beomanuals.com, but the scan is poor quality/borderline illegible.