@@dennisp.2147 I was thinking more of a bad wordart-style text block declaring that alongside an extremely low-framerate gif of an LP growing into a 16" 😂
@@dennisp.2147 I cannot stand those reaction videos with those ridiculous looking faces being recommended to me. They are annoying. (Comment Shadowed by RU-vid)
The sound quality improvement from your modifications along with playing that broadcast quality, transcription record is nothing short of INCREDIBLE Kevin! I am amazed sir. Bravo!!!
I'll bet that's mostly because of the higher input impedance of the Realistic mixer. Ceramic (piezo-electric) cartridges output a fairly high voltage, but their ability to source current is very low, and much lower at low frequencies than at high frequencies, so only an input with a very high (at least 1 megohm) impedance will sound decent, anything lower will lack bass and sound tinny. But most garden-variety line inputs have a fairly low impedance to avoid noise pickup, so the generic amplifier they probably used in this cheap turntable sounded a lot worse with the ceramic pickup than it would have with a connection to another device. There might even be a way, by changing resistor values, to increase the impedance of this cheap amplifier since most modern cheap amplifiers are op-amp based, using chips capable of very high impedances. Back in the 1950s and '60s, some record players even took advantage of this quirk of ceramic cartridges by having the bass control simply alter the input impedance, saving money on capacitors or inductors; one Magnavox model managed to do this with one potentiometer for both left and right channels, saving another buck or two. The obvious problem with such a setup was that if you tried to play anything else through those amplifiers, the bass control would no longer work.
The 16" wide groove 33 1/3 RPM disc was introduced in 1926 by Western Electric and was used for the Vitaphone film sound process the discs could hold up to 15 minutes, and broadcasters started using it soon after for recording and distributing radio shows, by the late thirties many radio stations even had their own transcription recording equipment made by Western Electric, RCA or Presto. In NYC NBC and CBS had their own transcription recording services (NBC's took up the 7th floor of 30 Rock) then there were the independents like Mary Howard and Universal (Raymond Scott) who would record network feeds for clients for a fee, that is who we have a copy of Benny Goodmans 1938 Carnegie Hall performance. With the introduction of the Ampex model 200 tape recorder, the writing was on the wall for transcription discs and they had mostly disappeared by the early 1950s.
Very cool! I really enjoyed how you hacked it to play that kind of record when it wasn't supposed to. But I originally misread the thumbnail and thought it played 16rpm records instead of 16 inch. I had a record player when I was a kid that played 16, 33, 45, and 78 rpm records, and I've always been fascinated by the 16rpm speed - especially since I didn't know what it was for until the Internet came along. Maybe someday you'll look into that kind of record? I don't know if you have already, but it would be interesting.
I have a 1972 Goldring Lenco Turntable that can play 16RPM records. They were generally used for the likes of talking books or more to the point The bible :-) I'm yet to find one in the wild. I get that I could purchase one off an online auction site, but where's the fun in that? ;-)
Something like this is exactly the kind of thing I would try. It’s cheap enough that you don’t feel bad about butchering it, but sounds good enough to make it a worthwhile project. Now if only it could be adapted to play 16 rpm records…
Great hack job. I had a reel to reel in the late 80's that took upto 6 inch spools. I found that if I took the top plate off, along with the tape guides, head cover and the speed control knob, I could just fit 7 inch reels onto it. :)
I thought this was a fun and happily unique record player / turntable. The speed on the one we reviewed was perfect out of the box and wouldn’t be half bad as a beginner setup. Guitar Center was selling them with the speakers for $84 last Christmas.
Very interesting, nice to see a lower end turntable get some extra functionality! Since it was partially broken, it would have just been seen as ewaste, but now it’ll actually be better than before. Plus the cosmetics aren’t too important when it didn’t cost much to get.
I bought the same one you have for new last year ! I had been given a bunch of vinyl records and decided to try this beginner vinyl player with the small speakers... I then got real speakers and a car bass sub hooked it all up and now I have one hell of a setup ! And for very cheap ! Love this little vinyl player ! I love the Blutooth mode also ! Not bad at all ! Nice video dude !
Many kiddie turntables from back in the day had a tonearm that could spin all the way around; I have such a turntable which can be seen in my 16-inch transcript video. However, I was intelligent enough to know right from the start that if I place the needle the wrong way, the record would still play forwards because the record is still spinning in the correct direction
I found it fascinating that the worn 78 sounded way worse with the 3 mil stylus. I thought it was really cool what you did with the tone arm. I'm sure it changed the correct tracking angle for regular records but just what you did is so cool. I misread the title. For some reason I was thinking it was going to play a 16 rpm record and not a 16 inch record. I enjoyed this one. Thank you for sharing.
Your conclusion about the needle size is also my experience. I digitized many 78's with an LP needle with very good results. Later I switched to a dedicated needle and while the overal sound is much better, specially on clean records, the sound on old worn out records is better with an LP needle! This is because the detail low in the groove is lower then on the surface, but the groove is cleaner down under!
Thanks for making this video! For years I've been thinking about getting something that can play 16 inch discs. Modifying one of these is the affordable and practical option I've seen!
If this record player is easily accessible, would you recommend it otherwise for basic home use? That music on the 16" transcription record sounds like music you'd hear on the original Tom & Jerry series!
It's a bare bones Realistic and good enough in some manner for general use.. .. I tested one out back in the day..but I bought the 1200 series Realistic with the true crossfader back in 1990... a superior mixer that was actually $10 more than this one in the video. Had proper cueing as well. It's still a functional mixer if one HAD to use it Djing ..but it's rather noisy compared to a Rane..but no one would probably notice in general.
Never mind expected to see a Realistic mixer. When I was a teenager in the 1990s, I purchased my friend's one and I still have it, although it doesn't get much use now. I might even have the same model but it's not as pristine looking.
Worn and scratched old 78 rpm record is the reason that the current optional styli for newer and current magnetic cartridges are 2.5 to 2.7 mil, to play lower in the grooves below the scuffs and minor scratches on the surface of the records. Good and interesting video!
I love it when you take trash and hack it into something with a purpose again. I have never encountered a 16" disc (nor a 16prm record for that matter) in the wild but I always knew about them.
Thats insane. the ridiculously cheap multi-record system from gemini! Great video as always with the turntables and Audio equipment! I am currently on a hunt for a Realistic clairnette 114 turntable stylus or whole cartridge. I can find styluses for it, but the whole cart is another fiasco- or even finding something that compatible with it... at least documented or noted anywhere. WHAT FUN!
Great 78 record :) interesting you can play with the LP stylus . Never seen a transcription disk here in uk, not sure if they were ever here . It's got great sound :) Thanks for posting
What an awesome repurpose of a cheap, messed up record player! Also, I saw you added some videos of German Perpetuum Ebner (PE) 2000s series of turntables in your "favorites" playlist on your record channel. In fact, these are very interesting and specially constructed masterpieces of engineering. They're able to play a stack of up to 10 records and even repeat a record if wanted so without an overarm! And it has a very clever trick of detecting record sizes - there's a little pin that gets pushed down once a record is being placed and moves a spring-loaded lever assembly back (indicating there's a record on the platter). And there's a little feeler that bumps into the edge of 12 inch records if they're being played (platters are about 10 3/4 inches big) and if it doesn't detect anything it'll play a 7 inch. You may think that it sounds pretty simple, yet it still has another trick up its sleeve! As the platter mat has a higher outer edge, if a 10 inch disc is being played the pin won't be pushed through all the way and the PE knows to put the stylus down on the 10 inch position - what a clever quirk! And yet it still doesn't stop with highly unique features; the cueing is done by pushing a pin that lifts up the entire tonearm assembly (including the resting post) and js activated by pushing the selection lever over to the left. That pushes a second leverage which hooks onto the drive gear and "pulls the pin up" as it rotates. Perpetuum Ebner carried this exact design from their crystal cartridge models like the PE 2001 (which I own 3 of), all the way to the 2020 which was considered "the most reliable audiophile record changer" and is still highly popular amongst vintage hifi enthusiasts. If you ever see anything labeled "PE 20xx" or "Telefunken TW/Musikus 509" (90% shared parts to a PE) you should definitely pick it up and do a video about it! Even the low end models had great sound quality and if properly cleaned and lubricated they'll last you a lifetime. It's great to know that even the cheapest models were made to last. But be aware that the mechanism might seem scary (as it's 100 times more complicated and thought-out than a BSR) at first, but once you understand the purpose of every lever and linkage you'll truly understand just how impressive a record changer could be at any price point! Cheers from Germany.
Great find! Aside from the modern niche (expensive) turntables advertised as being made for ET playback a couple of the old British idlers, the Collaro 4T200 and Garrard 4HF had sufficiently long arms mounted far enough away from the platter with narrow arm mounts that would permit a transcription disc to play. Unfortunately the prices of good examples of those tables are starting to rise.
This is outstanding news! I’ve had a stack of 15” transcription discs for decades and have been looking for a cool hack to play them. Well done! I’ll have to give this a try. Thank you!
Cool find...I never saw this model. I was surprised to see speaker outs on this player. I would have picked this up right away for $20. I laughed at the 360 degree tonearm at first....it almost seems like it was supposed to be like that. Kudos for playing Jawbreaker's Dear You for a second....that is a great album!
Playing the 78 RPM record with the LP stylus lost some volume, But man, did it clean up the audio! TIL: If you have worn 78s, give them a go with an LP stylus! Who knew? Software might clean up some of the "hiss" for archiving digitally.
I have the same Tandy mixer. I was using it briefly 25 years ago to make sound on sound recordings before I could afford a 4-track recorder. Will have to dig it out (it's under the bed!) to see whether it improves the sound quality of my turntable.
Songs played on the turntable 4:47 Rusty Dean - Your Broken Heart Is Showin' Through 5:23 Rusty Dean - Hey Jude 6:04 Johnny Marvin - Under The Ukulele Tree 10:46 Richard Maltby Orchestra - Samba Caliente 11:18 Richard Maltby Orchestra - Summer Serenade 11:47 Richard Maltby Orchestra - Boom-Dee-Ay Boogie 12:22 Richard Maltby Orchestra - Spider Dance 13:08 Richard Maltby Orchestra - We'll Meet at the End of the Rainbow
Well Done! Myself, I have refurbished, and gathered parts for at least two turntable projects; maybe I'll make a 78 RPM, or Transcription turntable since you, and this RU-vid Channel has motivated me.🔉🎵🎶
Sounds great and it looks pretty 😻 use a spring on the support post on the rear of the tone arm. Wide round one to slip over the post to hold the arm up. 😊
Great video- I have one of those giant red records with old Pepto Bismol commercials on it. I played it on my Kenwood KD-500 turntable by removing the entire Sumiko tone arm assembly and holding it in my hand, propped on the table. I made a short video, I'll post it if I can find it.
On the 78rpm disc, give it a wash first, then play it while still wet. That should clean up the sound. (6:50) As for having the auto-stop disabled, that's a "plus" for the unit as sometimes the auto-stop can stop the platter prematurely before the stylus has reached the run-out groove.
Can't wait for the 21"s to arrive. Playing the record the other way round just looks so painfully beautiful! Now that made me think: is there a turntable with two or more tonearms? Hope that idea didn't awaken something from a storage area somewhere!
There are players with two styli, the ones for “binaural” early stereo discs, but they’re usually side to side rather than one swung all the way on the other end of the spindle. Though in theory it could’ve been set up that latter way.
A lot of crazily high-end, more-money-than-sense turntables have seperate tonearms for 33 and45, probably totally seperate outputs so both can be routed to entirely seperate setups, too. As I said, more money than sense.
There were record players that were sold with two seperate tone arms. They were 78 RPM . They were called record cutters. One tone arm did the cutting. The other did the playing. There's video's out there with people that have working ones. They made playable records out of anything and everything. Pretty cool!
i think the 78 still is better with the 3mil needle because the signal sounds (to me) like it's got a wider frequency range; the LP needle is crushing it. sure, it's got more crackles, but i think if you were making a digital recording, it would sound better to edit out the crackles, because at least you'd be starting out with the basic recording intact underneath
Techmoan just did a video on getting a decent budget 78 setup about a week ago, as well; he even did a demo on the 1 mil 33 1/3 needle/groove vs. the 3 mil 78 needle/groove.
Got that right, as my eldest aunt before she died couple years ago gave me an Altec-Lansing branded mini Bluetooth speaker as a Christmas gift that was so badly made, and with no rough usage(this was supposed to be a rugged speaker according to the package), and by the end of the day the speaker grill was coming off, the paint on the grill was coming off on my hands, and you could not get 3ft from it before it started dropping signal 😅
@@michaelturner4457 It's a shame that some of the old well-known and respected brands are now just hacks for chinese junk manufacturers. AKAI used to make some really good hi-fi back in the 70s and 80s - now it's used on cheap chinese toasters and rice cookers (something the AKAI of old never made).
3:50 - Hmm. I was guessing that the the height of the pivot needed to be raised (overhang adjustment). UPDATE: I believe the pivot got smashed in somehow and the height you set it at is was what it was originally!
I actually did something very similar with a cheap crosley suitcase player to play my transcription discs. Far far cheaper than a transcription turntable and sounds pretty decent with a better cartridge.
I wish I had this player back in the 80s because I had a toy that had what's called an ozen box which contains a small record inside for the toy's sounds and I could have used a player with a tone arm broken like that to record the sounds of the toy to digital.
Wonderful video, Kevin! No doubt you've just saved a lot of people a lot of money. I don't have any 16-inch transcription discs, but I do have some 78s (mostly late-40s, early 50s) and have noticed the sound improvement sometimes when playing them with the wrong stylus. I appreciate you confirming what I suspected.
That doesn't sound to bad at all. Even with the youtube conversion. Nice modification! I don't think the transcriptiondiscplayer industry is gonna be glad with this video 🤣
“ thank you, God!… For letting me find this guys RU-vid channel!” - “For Realz!” Lol :-) I think I may have told you last time when I introduced myself but I’m a retired Hollywood sound engineer… You just taught me an amazing trick today that would’ve really come in handy back in the 90s and saved me countless months if not years and tens of thousands of dollars! On The Cambridge cedar system” Real time vinyl pop, Click and Crackle remover! - for what it’s worth? Back in the early 90s? That technology was LITERALLY more expensive than my freaking house in the Hollywood Hills!!!! LOL Turns out? I just needed a different needle!!! - HAHAHA! - NOW you tell me! Lol :-) PS?!? - my heart almost stopped when you showed the black RadioShack mixer! - oh my God!… THAT was my first ever mixer!! (it sounds weird to normal people but your first mixer is one of those important things to sound guys! Am I right??? :-) Cheers! - Judson & Buddy! - have a great day everyone!
My first mixer was a Behringer MX2642A. 8 mic pre's, 4 stereo line ins, 4 stereo aux ins, 6 aux sends, 2 stereo sub groups. I loved that thing. Still have it. Channel 1 was dead when I bought it (used), and still is. I should really fix that some day ...
My expectation when you played the record on the wrong side of the spindle: "The stylus is so sideways from the groove, it's going to sound all distorted." Looks like I was partially correct, not nearly as bad as I expected.
I was wrong about it playing backwards too, Then I thought Oh, Yeah: Geometry is weird! LOL. It's all the same to the stylus, Just backwards from OUR visual perspective. On a side note, playing 16" records is cool, BUT it would have been EVEN better if 16 RPM was ALSO tossed in!😜
You made that transcription disk sound NICE. I _love_ how you managed to eke deep sizzly warm silky delicious golden age vibes out of my tiny anker soundcore 2 over youtube compression *and* bluetooth SBC with that ludicrous setup. (Btw does that make me an audiophile?)
[NJ] Thrift Store: Just a bit of VWestlife needed. Nowhere else can a "cheap" find be removed of parts, creating a Greater 'Find', and made to sound so swell. Why does music reminds me of those Wonderful 'Old' Cartoons? 6:05 .. 11:00 ... *Thanks!*
