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Showing posts from June, 2019

Trio Kenwood KD-1033 turntable main bearing service

  One of my first posts in this blog was regarding the servicing of the Pioneer PL12D turntable, and that has proven to be the most popular by a significant margin. The Pioneer PL12D had its competitors, and probably the most popular alternative was the Trio Kenwood KD-1033 turntable. I use both names (Trio and Kenwood) as the company operated under different names in different markets. In the UK they were Trio, possibly because the brand Kenwood was most famous here for food blenders. 95% of a KD-1033 is similar to  Pioneer PL12D, and servicing them is very much the same process. Both are belt drive , have an AC synchronous motor,  mechanical speed change , a main bearing, sprung top deck and rubber motor mounts. the KD-1033 uses a different type of anti skate mechanism, employing a thread and weight. The plinth is shallower with an internal cross brace. One aspect that is different is the design of the main bearing, and servicing it is a little harder than a PL12D. The Pioneer main b

Excellent Cartridge review site

A feature of many of these blogs is my interest in vinyl records and turntables. Over the years I've acquired and restored a number of decks, all of which came with a cartridge, but were they worth keeping ? Well my  friend , and fellow fan, Clive,  has created a wonderful resource with a great deal of invaluable detail about a wider range of cartridges, and reviewed in classic decks like the PL12D, Rega Planar 2 and the Technics SL1200. Well worth visiting for the insight and detail around things such as optimal capacitive loading , for example PHONO CARTRIDGE REVIEWS

Mending speaker drivers

Some months back, I did a silly thing and blew one of the drivers in my speakers. I think while fumbling with the wires between my pre and power amps I may have run a tape monitor into the power. Anyway, there was a loud noise and after that one of the Dalesford drivers in my RAM 200 speakers was damaged. It still worked but sounded wrong, and applying gentle inward pressure revealed it was rubbing on the voice coil. Basically the wiring had over heated. I looked around for a replacement but my challenge was that the Dalesford drivers are no longer made, and the RAM 200 used a special large magnet version of the driver. Some KEF drivers were considered a drop in replacement, but again, it would  require buying a second pair of speakers to cannibalise for parts, which also seemed wrong. I wondered if the speaker driver could be repaired, though I realised this was beyond anything I could do. I found a few places on the internet that could do the work, though some seemed to take a