DIY record player

[Geoff78]

Hello,

I was just wondering if any one has ever attempted to make their own record player.
I quite fancy a pop at something like this once all of my jobs are finished on the house

Cheers

Geoff.

[Michael Maurice]

In 1970 I did make my own record player, I bought a 9V battery operated turntable and an amplifier from Henry's Radio in the Edgware Rd, found a suitable loudspeaker, made a cabinet out of ply and some rexine covering.

I even took it to school which gained me a tiny bit of popularity.

The thing is if I was building one today, what I would put in it.

Which record deck would I fit? It would have to be a second hand one possibly a Garrard or BSR. Or at a stretch a very much later Collaro.

Amplifier - Valved or Transistorised. Valved might be a bit more challenging.

Stereo or Mono?

If Valved would you use E series valves or U series valves.

What would you make the cabinet from.

What would be interesting is the cost of the exercise.

Now that Geoff has opened the box, lets see some more suggestions.

[meepy man]

Hiya Geoff,

Well I sort of made my own record-player when I was a kid, a stereo one, but I cheated.

I got two amps from old record-players that were trashed (from the local dump), I think they had ECL82 valves in them? (this was about 37 years ago). Then I went to a shop in Conway Street, Birkenhead, where I was living at the time called Brownings and bought a stereo pick-up. Then I located an old deck and attached all the components into a wooden box that I had made.

I recall, all I did then was to join the earths from the two amps together and attach the cable to the pick-up that I had bought from Brownings.

I didn't even have a soldering iron, so I kept going to he shop to buy Cellotape to insulate the wires!

It took me several attempts to get it working and many rolls of Cellotape, but in the end I got it working. I later sold my pride and joy to a secondhand shop to get spending money to go on holliday.

oh yes, If any kids are reading this, don't use cellotape to insulate wires, it's not really a good idea.

Ah well, we live and learn

Tony

['LIVEWIRE?']

This doesn't really count, I guess, but about 30 years ago I built a music centre based on the 'Wimbourne' design published in 'PW' at that time. To be fair I used the tuner and amplifier kits, and cassette recorder as specified by the designer, with some mods of my own, chief of which were adding recording level meters and an auto stop circuit to the cassette deck, the latter I built on Veroboard to a design published in Wireless World

[Adjuster]

Some time in the early 1970s while still at school I made, or more accurately adapted myself a battery record player using a small DC motor and a turntable removed from an old Dansette. The original speed change mechanism was discarded; 33rpm and 45 rpm were "selected" by ear using a rheostat. It could not do 78rpm as the motor simply could not go fast enough.

The old mono cartridge was replaced with a high output crystal stereo type, feeding a very simple headphone amplifier - two transistors arranged as a Darlington pair on each side. I think the circuit came out of Practical Electronics. The quality must have been pretty terrible, but it was my first experience of stereo on headphones and I was quite pleased with it, despite having to fiddle with the speed control as the batteries ran down.

It was a long way from what kids have today!

[dseymo1]

I've considered thisidea before, but have never had time to spare. My thought, though, was to make a record player using relatively modern technology.
Personally, I'd use a Dual CS505 as the deck: rugged enough to withstand carrying around, much better quality than BSR or similar Garrard decks, and cheaply and easily available.
I'd use one of the many 'Class D' amps now available, and couple this to a 'car' coaxial speaker system, as they are intended to be run open-backed, and have a decent frequency response.
Maybe one day!

[fidobsa]

I have wondered if it would be possible to use a modern arm on a vintage turntable. If doing that it might be nice to also build a modern valve amplifier with moving coil or moving magnet inputs. New valve amplifiers often cost thousands of pounds but I don't know how much of that is down to component cost or if the manufacturers are making huge profits. The whole lot, with some modern speakers could be fitted in an original restored or replica '30s cabinet.

[f.cooper]

Hi,
It was in the late 50s when I did not have much money I had given to me by a friend of a relative a Turntable (mains powered) with a separate pickup mounted on wooden baseboard. I had some old Practical Wireless magazines and one of these from about 1950 had a design for a push-pull amplifier using 2 x 6V6s, 6SN7 AND EF37A/6J7 with rectifier 5Z4/5Y3G. I begged borrowed and scrounged all the components from scrapped radios and friends etc. The output transformer was from a damaged (rip in cone) WB Stentorian 8 inch loudspeaker which had a switch and transformer (push-pull). Had to work outside on a bench with a extension lead to the house for mains power for soldering iron etc. First time I switched it on and tried it my mother had gone to the local shop. She came back home in a hurry and very annoyed and not appreciating that she heard "Underneath The Arches" half a mile up the road.

Best Regards Fred

[Paulus.d]

I did the same as a kid - took to bits an old sanyo player and rehoused the amp, a new BSR deck, speakers and had many Neon lights, switches and LEDS into an old B&W Tv case!

Of course I fitted sockets for recording from and inputs for the Amp!!!

regards Paul

[mark pirate]

Back in the early seventies, i made up a stereo record player out of two old dansette record players, both were identical bar the colour!
I cut the front part with amp & speaker, off the first one & ran a screened lead (from an old reel 2 reel mic) to the second player, i then fitted a cheap stereo cartridge to the old bsr deck & wow, it worked well
My first valve stereo!!

Mark

[Steve_P]

Well I did something similar too.

Philips Deck, New Cartridge as the old one was green and yucky, two tape recorder amps (from two TD2 Decked Elizabethan machines), and 2 speakers from old radios on each channel, indiidually controlled, one having more bass than the other, at separate corners of my room.

Sort of Quasi-Quadrophonic.

Also a crytyal earpiece could be switched in for night time and revision listening. Only one channel on this though.

Then drove my parents mad with it. Never bothered with a case for the amps and the Philips deck was in an old tape recorder case.

I've probably got most of the bits.

Cheers,

Steve P.

[ppppenguin]

As a kid I tried to make a turntable out of Meccano. That wasn't too hard but I wanted to make a pickup too. 78 only of course. With bits of tinfoil and heaven knows what else I got some wasp in bottle noises. I don't think my experimental 78s were ever quite the same again.

[brianc]

In the late 1950s, we, in the the 6th form at school formed a youth club - no H&S regulations in those days so no adults were involved. We needed a record player so I went to Tottenham Court road and bought a Collaro deck and a red rexine covered cabinet. From the bits at home I built an amplifier using a 12AX7 and a short B7G output valve - can't remember the type. The speaker was a 6" Tannoy with a huge magnet with an output xformer from the junk box. It performed very well - no impedance calculations etc. as I was not capable of them - and it filled the hall we used with undistorted sound. It must have been luck that I got the right combination! I don't know what happened to it as I was sent, by the BBC, to Birmingham for the start of my working life. The club carried on.
Cheers
Brian

[Denis G4DWC]

I made a record player when I was about 12 or 13. It was made out of Meccano!! The Turntable was made out of four wheels fitted with rubber tyres, overall each about 2.5" in diameter fitted to few bits of Angle. It had a geared drive to a handle on the side of the Meccano chassis. My Brother gave me an old cast off stylus from his record player and this was glued into the end of a fairly large paper cone. Of course no one in the family thought this contraption would work. They wished it hadn't as I all I had were three records one being Blaze away on a 7" 78 I think, Horsey Horsey and a Paul Anka 78 all of which which I played over and over again. I also made a note of the number of revolutions the records made from start to finish and then with a few gears and a Cam it would lift the cone off the record when it came to the end. I got quite good at maintaining the RPM with the handraulic drive..

Denis

[percival007]

Here's my attempt.

A perspex plinth with a Pioneer Motor and a Rega Arm.

The wooden boxes below are the EQ Amp and then an Integrated Power Amp, all valve.

Probably not what a lot of people would class as High Fidelity but i like the sound it all produces.

[Jimmyhaflinger]

Last year i made my first DIY record player.

I had this old Italian-made Supravox mono record player fitted with a Garrard RC-121 mkII deck, the original amp was missing, and the original Garrard mono cartridge was dead, but it had two speakers (wired in series) so i decided to rebuild it into a stereo player, i made a new amp based on 2 ECL82 valves and fitted a good quality 70s Sonotone stereo ceramic cartridge in the Garrard headshell (this left a gaping hole in place of the old turnover knob though)

It came out pretty well and sounds really good.

You can see the amp i made for it in the pics below.

[Michael Maurice]

That looks truly excellent.

Are both speakers the same? I presume its just the angle of the photograph which makes the RH speaker (when viewed from behind) look bigger.

[ben]

My first DIY record player was when I was aged about 7 or 8. Inspired by the gramophone I'd got from a jumble sale, I had a go at making a mechanical player using domestic junk! I recall a few small bits of wood for an arm, a nail as a stylus, and some plasticine. No idea what the platter was, a plate or hubcap probably. I vaguely recall being able to hear sound off some 78s on it while spinning the platter by hand!

[Jimmyhaflinger]

Originally Posted by Michael Maurice

That looks truly excellent.

Are both speakers the same? I presume its just the angle of the photograph which makes the RH speaker (when viewed from behind) look bigger.

The right hand speaker is larger indeed, it's 8 inches, while the left hand speaker is 6 inches, it has to be smaller to make room for the volume and tone pots and mains switch.

The smaller speaker doesn't sound noticeably different from the larger one though.

[quantum]

I well remember my first attempt - it was in 1969 when I was about 12-13 and I had an old Garrard deck (which ran slow) which I connected to the audio section of a an old transistor radio. The mismatch in impedance meant it sounded truly awful, but to my ears it was beautiful. My first mains gram amp used an old Philips chassis which had the radio removed, but I have carefully kept the power supply bits intact, and I made a single ended amp using a EF80 running from a BSR deck (not very loud but EF80s were plentiful!), before later moving onto EL84s and other proper output valves and two stage amps...