I recently bought an old Becenter 5000 for a nominal sum from Ebay. The tape deck is completely non-functional which I was expecting, but I am also having problems with the turntable. I  adjusted the stylus pressure to 1.5g but when I played a record it was prone to skidding off the record almost immediately, even if I placed the stylus in the middle of thre record.  I adjusted the weight to an excessive level then and this helped   bit but it is still prone to skipping and jumping and isn't a sustainable solution.. This problem has got progressively worse since I got the system a few days ago and it had gone from being a bit tempereramental to being almost unusable. I'd really like to keep using the system as it sounds fantastic when playing CD;s on my Sony Player through my S45-2's Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I should look at first?

Simon

If I remember there is a damper which slow down the lowering of the arm. Over time the grease hardens. You would need to strip this down and regrease.

Kevin

 

I took it apart last night. Part of the problem was the anti-skating which I have now dealt with by moving the slider

 I haven't been able to find the damper though? Could you describe it to me please?

Also the SQ is poor unless I track at around 4-5 grams, I have tried this with a couple of different cartridges. Tracking at 1.5g it scarcely stays in the grooves at all and is unlistenable. Is it likely to be the turntable of have I got two broken cartridges?

Simon

Hi Simon,

may have got he wrong arm... B&O were twix and between arms and cartridges at the time. I take it this is the thin arm but with the MMC20* type cartridge?

A couple of things (ignore them if you've already done so and they are tooooo obvious just trying to cover bases):

Are the transport screws properly down?

Will the arm lower beyond the record level when you've started playing... switch off the power and carefully manualy lift the arm off the record and see. If not the is a small grub screw in the U shape of the carriage which adjusts the height.

Finally setting the balance is done by (with the cartridge attatched) turning the black cylinder weight until the arm balances... then hold this tight and move the silver part showing the weights to zero. Then set the weight for your cartridge.

 

Hope that helps

 

Kevin 

Kevin

 Thanks for the reply 

 I haven't checked the transport screw, I'll have a look tonight.

I have balanced the tonearm and set to 1.5g But at 1.5g the stylus scarcely touches the disk and the sound is very distorted which could  be (From what I remember)  consistent with a cartridge tracking at well under 1.5g. so I do feel something may well going on with the tone arm even though it seems to move up and down fairly freely. I have checked the stylus under a microscope and all seems well. It may be better to wait until my BC7000 arrives and see how the cartridges work on there.

 

Thanks again

 

Simon

I do think your right I doubt it's the cartridges. See what the grub screw produces maybe?