{"id":1722,"date":"2014-12-22T11:27:35","date_gmt":"2014-12-22T17:27:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bigdadoo.com\/blog\/?p=1722"},"modified":"2014-12-22T19:28:03","modified_gmt":"2014-12-23T01:28:03","slug":"going-old-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bigdadoo.com\/blog\/2014\/12\/22\/going-old-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Going Old School"},"content":{"rendered":"

My first stereo system component was a Harman Kardon Rabco ST-7<\/a>. This is a very sweet linear tracking turntable and for several months it just sat on a shelf as I admired my 1st purchase. At that point I had nothing to hook it up to!<\/p>\n

Well after a couple of decades in retirement, it’s back in service. The main driver for this revival was a gift of Hillsongs Zion on vinyl from Scott and Mandy on my birthday. It hooked effortlessly into my current audio system, and even had a space waiting for it on the shelf.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1358.JPG\"<\/a><\/p>\n

However, halfway through the first song, things came to a screeching halt, quite literally. The tone arm mechanism was not tracking properly and trailed the arm is such a way that it pinned it down to the record. Not good.<\/p>\n

Well, after 20+ years of just sitting around, I guess a little maintenance work is to be expected. The ST-7 is notoriously finicky to get set up correctly, but once you’ve got it, its a thing of beauty. After removing the back cover plate it became clear that there was a lot of buildup and “gunk” on the tracking shaft which\u00a0is instrumental in keeping the arm moving properly across the record. After cleaning that I my attention turned to the small tracking roller that rides on the tracking shaft\u00a0roller tube. It had similar looking gunk on it. Armed with a Q-tip and alcohol (for cleaning purposes on the Q-tip) I started to clean the roller. A short time into that process and I started to wonder if this was normal, and what is this gunky stuff.<\/p>\n

Google to the rescue. It turns out this “gunk” is what’s left of the silicone ring that is fitted onto the roller. For the ST-7 this\u00a0is a well known maintenance issue<\/a>, and from all the descriptions I could locate on the web, very challenging to get the roller out. Once out you can replace the silicone ring with a fairly standard plumbing o-ring from Home Depot. The challenge is getting the roller out and back in without breaking anything or doing a full and complex disassembly. The roller is in a plastic U shaped holder, with very limited access. Apparently surgical tools and surgical skills are a asset in doing this repair.<\/p>\n

Perhaps some more disassembly will assist in getting this thing out. Next thing you know my ST-7 looks like this, stripped of all it’s aluminium finery.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"IMG_1360.JPG\"<\/a>
\nThe roller that I need to replace is in here, behind that metal plate with the screw sticking out (Tracking adjuster), cradled in that light grey plastic piece that you can hardly see.
\n\"IMG_1365.JPG\"<\/a><\/p>\n

After quite some time and some careful exploration, the roller is out!<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1363.JPG\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Apparently, the roller is not symmetrical, some 0.20 mm wider on one end than the other so I get a measure to ensure it goes back in the right way. That brown stuff is like a gummy bear that has melted down and wrapped itself around the roller. Cleaning it up and putting the new o-ring on is easy. Another hour to get the roller back into it’s holder.<\/p>\n

After a few re-assembly goofs, it’s all back together and running. I probably spent another 1-2 hours adjusting the tracking while enjoying some resurrected albums from the storage areas that we’re saved from my collecting days.<\/p>\n

I’m sure there will be a little more vinyl in my listening future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My first stereo system component was a Harman Kardon Rabco ST-7. This is a very sweet linear tracking turntable and for several months it just sat on a shelf as I admired my 1st purchase. At that point I had nothing to hook it up to! Well after a couple of decades in retirement, it’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[43,46,50],"tags":[121,119,120,122,123],"class_list":["post-1722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","category-life","category-maintenance","tag-harmon-kardon","tag-rabco","tag-st-7","tag-turntable","tag-vinyl"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigdadoo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigdadoo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigdadoo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigdadoo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigdadoo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1722"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigdadoo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1728,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigdadoo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1722\/revisions\/1728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigdadoo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigdadoo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigdadoo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}