Hi Schiss,
I realize you posted your question well over a year ago. Were you able to make any progress on your Gates turntable? I just gote mine a couple of days ago. This thing is just unreal...and it's still in vintage 1960's condition. Compared to my Linn, this thing is a dazzling tour de force of engineering. The Linn is rather disappointing. The CB-77 came with a Gray Research tonearm and a Stanton cartridge. I'm unsure which Gray arm it is yet. Anyhoo, I'm going to do some basic maintenance on it to get it in proper running shapea and get to know how it sounds. Then I'd like to have the bearing, spindle and platter machined to more precise tolerances.
What sort of work did you end up doing to your CB-77? What sort of plinth did you end up fabricating? Did you ground the bearing? What about grounding the motor? Any special motor controller? I'm wondering about these, as I've read that the Garrards benefit tremendously from a higher quality controller - especially those which offer variable voltage to the motor. Apparently a lower voltage to the motor results in less motor noise, which has noticeably positive affects on it's musicality.
Also, and I hope you don't mind my forwardness in asking you so many questions, What sort of tonearm(s) and cartridges have you found success with? I'm really wanting to set up facilities to play back stereo, mono and 78s. I have no real experience with either mono or 78s, so I'm still not very far along the learning curve. The Schick tonearm looks very intriguing. The Jelcos also look like very nice alternatives for setting up a variety of configurations. I haven't been able to find any to listen to, but the Schick has very nice reviews across the board, and Jelco has OEM'd a number of nice tonearms over the years, including the Linn Ittok that I have on the LP12. I'm going to see if I can get the Gray cleaned and adjusted...while I look for a cartridge that will mate with this very high mass tonearm. So many things to sort out and figure out...
Also, the Gates has some sort of phono preamp attached to the underside. The cartridge runs into to it, then the output is sent to the phono out plugs. There is also a selector switch (RIAA/filter) on the right hand side of the 'table. I'm unsure yet if this is a device to keep and put to use, or if it's something to sell and put the money to use somewhere in the system.
Schiss, thank you for your patience with my new guy questions.
Cheers,
~james
I realize you posted your question well over a year ago. Were you able to make any progress on your Gates turntable? I just gote mine a couple of days ago. This thing is just unreal...and it's still in vintage 1960's condition. Compared to my Linn, this thing is a dazzling tour de force of engineering. The Linn is rather disappointing. The CB-77 came with a Gray Research tonearm and a Stanton cartridge. I'm unsure which Gray arm it is yet. Anyhoo, I'm going to do some basic maintenance on it to get it in proper running shapea and get to know how it sounds. Then I'd like to have the bearing, spindle and platter machined to more precise tolerances.
What sort of work did you end up doing to your CB-77? What sort of plinth did you end up fabricating? Did you ground the bearing? What about grounding the motor? Any special motor controller? I'm wondering about these, as I've read that the Garrards benefit tremendously from a higher quality controller - especially those which offer variable voltage to the motor. Apparently a lower voltage to the motor results in less motor noise, which has noticeably positive affects on it's musicality.
Also, and I hope you don't mind my forwardness in asking you so many questions, What sort of tonearm(s) and cartridges have you found success with? I'm really wanting to set up facilities to play back stereo, mono and 78s. I have no real experience with either mono or 78s, so I'm still not very far along the learning curve. The Schick tonearm looks very intriguing. The Jelcos also look like very nice alternatives for setting up a variety of configurations. I haven't been able to find any to listen to, but the Schick has very nice reviews across the board, and Jelco has OEM'd a number of nice tonearms over the years, including the Linn Ittok that I have on the LP12. I'm going to see if I can get the Gray cleaned and adjusted...while I look for a cartridge that will mate with this very high mass tonearm. So many things to sort out and figure out...
Also, the Gates has some sort of phono preamp attached to the underside. The cartridge runs into to it, then the output is sent to the phono out plugs. There is also a selector switch (RIAA/filter) on the right hand side of the 'table. I'm unsure yet if this is a device to keep and put to use, or if it's something to sell and put the money to use somewhere in the system.
Schiss, thank you for your patience with my new guy questions.
Cheers,
~james