Hacker GP15 Stylus and cartridge

[Jercox56]

Hi,

I have a Hacker GP15 player and amp and wanted to know what stylus and/or cartridge I need as I think the one I have needs replacing (frequently jumps and I'm not sure it plays stereo)?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

Jeremy

['LIVEWIRE?']

That cartridge (I'm not sure what make & model) is almost certainly not stereo-compatible. A suitable replacement would, IMHO, be a BSR SC11m, though these are now hard to come by and expensive, probably £35 to £40. There is, or was, a stereo ceramic cartridge available for somewhat less than that on eBay(wrongly described as a magnetic cartridge in the seller's post).

[Audio1950]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but that's a foreign copy of the Ronette DC284, and they are notorious for skipping and jumping. A new stylus will not help ,the fault is in the poorly made cartridge. It has virtually no compliance, which in other words means that the stylus cannot move freely enough to follow the groove in the record as it's meant to. This means that eventually your records will suffer, so I recommend you change it as soon as possible. Also, it is a strictly mono only cartridge, and will severely damage stereo records.

[Edward Huggins]

Assuming you want to play your Stereo LPs on this (in Mono), I would normally suggest the BSR X5M as the perfect replacement BUT I think these may all have been sold. Stocks were vey low as far back as January.

[Jercox56]

Hi,
I have just replaced the stylus on my Hacker GP15 with a Cavalier GP15/GP15ST Stereo/Mono Stylus (E039/7757. The sound is much better now, however, it still jumps. I was playing a new album, so I am assuming the record is OK, but it managed to jump quite a few times whilst playing each side. Can anyone recommend a solution? I did put a 10p piece on the arm and that helped a lot.

['LIVEWIRE?']

Is the cartridge either a stereo or mono compatible with stereo type? Pictures and/or a cartridge make & model no will help us identify it. The original cartridge is/was almost certainly a mono only type. Fitting a so-called stereo/Mono stylus to a mono cartridge will not make it suitable for playing stereo records.

[Audio1950]

With respect, I told you exactly what the problem was in your previous thread, but I repeat, the fault is with the awful "copy" cartridge not allowing the stylus to move properly, so it's jumping the grooves. Your only solution is to replace the cartridge with a decent one! Putting a 10p piece on the arm is a certain way of ruining your records.

['LIVEWIRE?']

When writing my earlier post, I didn't realize that about the Ronette Copy was about the same record player. Knowing that makes post #2 redundant. Recently there was an eBay seller advertising a ceramic cartridge (wrongly described as a magnetic one) with a 'flipover' stylus, at a reasonable price, but I can no longer find the listing. If it doesn't contravene forum rules, perhaps someone would be kind enough to post a link to it. That cartridge might be a good one for the GP15, and other vintage players at a more reasonable price than SC11's and the like!

[Jercox56]

I bought a BSR SC11M cartridge as recommended; however, when I tried to fit it I saw that there were only 2 wires (the ‘original’ cartridge only had 2 connectors), whereas the new BSR cartridge has 4 connectors.

I have put the old cartridge back on but wanted to know how to connect the BSR cartridge, i.e. is there a wiring diagram that shows what wires come off of the head and where to they fit onto the cartridge?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Radio tirana]

Hi Jeremy.

You mentioned in your first post that you had the matching Hacker amplifier with your GP15. In order to play records and hear them in stereo you will need to connect the amplifier to the record player with a connecting lead the necassary lead has longer than normal phono plugs on each end. the wiring in the tone arm should have three connections two wires for the left and right signals and one common screen usually braid where both the left and right ground connections are made. if you are using the record player on its own without the amplifier plug in the socket at the back, the left and right channels are joined inside the machine. When you plug in the phono plug the left hand signal from the cartridge goes to the add on amplifier leaving just the right hand signal being reproduced by the player's amplifier and speaker.

Sorry for the long winded explanation if you already know all this.

If you look at your new cartridge just either side of the metal clip that holds in the stylus you will see it has a small letter R with a plus sign above it and a minus sign below on one side of the clip and a letter L again with a Plus sign above it and minus below this represents function of the four pins.

You will need to join the two minus pins together and connect them to the screen. Then one wire for the left and the other the right, I am not sure what colour they are green for left and red for right I think, to the pins on the BSR.

Cartridge pins are flat rather than round and you may find the clips on your wires will not fit. Don't try and force them on or solder directly to the pins.

Kind regards RT.

[Audio1950]

There appears to be only two wires in your headshell, where there should be four, so two more must be added to the two spare pins. Are any of the four pins at the back of the headshell joined by a soldered wire?