During my test drive of the Beogram 8002 that I just brought back to life I was pondering Grover Washington, Jr's artistic output while listening to 'Knucklehead' on his seminal 'Mister Magic' record, when I realized that the tonearm was not tracking properly. It ran at a much to large angle relative to the sensor arm. So it was time to put on my least liked record, some free jazz by Sam Rivers, and do the tracking sensor adjustment procedure! This shows the arm with the original misadjusted sensor. It is not parallel with the sensor arm:
Luckily one can adjust the tracking sensor aperture without putting the 8002 into service position. All that is necessary is to remove the black panel that is under the arms in their home position and then the screw that controls the aperture can be accessed:
It is a good idea to drive the carriage a bit towards the center of the record. That allows to fit a small screwdriver into the enclosure for better fit into the screw head:
The service manual prescribes to block the platter with your hand to do the adjustment (one needs to achieve a setting of the aperture that the carriage starts moving after 2±1 turns of the platter after the needle touches down). This seemed a bit brutal to me, and I settled for simply letting the platter spin and then pressing 'play' to engage the needle. Then I counted the rotations while watching the spindle that drives the carriage. A few small adjustment steps forth an back and I was able to achieve the 2±1 spec. Here is an impression of the arm when the aperture is properly adjusted:
The arm is now virtually parallel with the sensor arm while the record is playing. This is Beolove! Now away with Sam Rivers and back to Grover Washington, Jr.! A much smoother sound!!..;-).
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments and suggestions are welcome!