ALBA model 536 Record Player

[dom10161]

Hi, this is my first Success story post, Just thought I would share my experience with this record player. The record player belonged to my grandparents, I have fond memories playing my records on this as a child in the 1970s when staying with them.

My mum rescued it sometime in the past and recently gave it to me, she said it wasn’t working.

Due to the current lockdown situation, the opportunity has arisen to do some work on the record player and get it working again.

First thing, clean it up, to be quite honest it wasn’t too bad, just dusty, I gave the case a wipe over with a damp cloth and some mild detergent. This brought it up quite well, it has a couple of dings on the case which can be expected for its age.

Next, the electronics, This has a transistorised amplifier, The power for this is fed from the BSR deck motor, The electrolytic caps looked ok no signs of leakage, no signs of distress on any of the other components. So power was applied.

The deck motor was spinning but nothing else, Did voltage check on amplifier power input from motor, Got healthy 18 V AC , The power indicator lamp is wired in parallel to this input this wasn’t working, Just turned out to be the lamp loose in its holder.

So, I had power to the amp but no noises from the speaker even when stylus was gently touched. After investigation I found the speaker was open circuit. The Speaker is 12 ohms (A bit of a strange value) Anyway I found an 8 ohm unit and temporarily wired this in, I now had sound, Pots were a bit noisy, but the cartridge seemed ok.

On to the BSR deck, this is a Model C129-A-1. First job remove the platter, This was simple, Removed the circlip, the platter and then the auto cycling cam, all came off without a struggle, thank goodness. I then proceeded to clean off any old gunk and re-lube where needed.

I checked the Idler Wheel. The rubber was still soft and not perished. I gave it a resurface with some 1000 grit sandpaper, cleaned and re-lubed the idler bearing and motor bearings.

I then proceeded to clean and re-lube the underside mechanism. No nasty surprises.

Once all reassembled I proceeded to give the unit a test run. I played a number of 45 rpm singles and a couple of LPs

All seemed good, The BSR deck gave a good account of itself, the speed seemed ok on 33 and 45 and the sound quality was ok considering the temporary speaker and original stylus.

I have added some photos below.

Just a couple of issues which I will address at a later date:

Now and again when the auto-stop is operating, the arm will come to rest a couple of mm short of the arm rest, I will investigate this a bit further.

I will replace the stylus

I will attempt to find a replacement 12 ohm speaker, I will add a post in the wanted section to start with.

And will clean the noisy pots, Just need to order a can of Servisol

[dom10161]

A few more photos

[Petedox]

Lovely clean looking result!

Pete

[IanBland]

Great result, took me back to the 70s!

[Herald1360]

A 15 or 16 ohm speaker would be a "safe" substitute- it would drop the max output level by about 1dB and give the (tiddly) output transistors a slightly easier life. You could possibly fry them with continuous flat out running on an 8 ohm speaker.