Post your turntable setups here! I wanna see how I stack up as a broke college kid!

I was thinking Erector Set.

 

Gonna need a lot more detail on how you put together that tone arm! Looks like the DIY version of OMA's insane Schroeder arm.

 

It's not really fair to compare your broke college system to the systems people have after they have been out of school for many years. Here on the middle shelf is my college system, which now has been fully refurbed and is with my brother. This is ca. 1976 Sansui 9090 receiver and a Thorens TD-160 with a Micro Acoustics 3002 cartridge.

 

Well, it´s kind of a long story...
About a year ago I started taking an interest in Cad-drawing, 3D-printing, laser cutting and other fun stuff in a Makers Space open workshop in town.
Around that time I also found the new Supatrac Blackbird tonearm and got fascinated by its genius but also simple design. There was also a fast growing diy thread about the SUPA arm design over at Lencoheaven, where also the Blackbirds creator Richard is an active, transparent and very helpful member.
I managed to cobble together a couple of working arms of more traditional design (armtube of alu and cf and some 3D printed parts).

For more info about the Supatrac Tonearm I suggest to take a look here

To make it easy for me, I cheated a bit and copied the geometry from the ADC LMF1 arm I had on my Lenco so I could use it´s mounting collar.

Then one evening I did some training on lasercutting in the shop and suddenly got this idea about making a triangular structure, glued together. Made a cad which seemed to work. Cut the shapes out of 2mm model plywood which I epoxied together. It worked really well! Some LH members then suggested making a CF version. So I did. But I also discovered that CF wont lasercut well so I had a CF-shop cnc mill the parts of 1.5 mm CF sheet. A bit more expensive than 5 bucks of ply. But after hearing the result it's worth every penny!

The sound is the best I have ever heard on my humble setup. The SUPA tonearm principle is serious business and I think every vinyl nerd should hear one before he/she rests the tonearm for good. If my diy sounds this good I can just guess how great the original Blackbird is.

Some more pics of the wooden and CF versions of this diy tonearm:

 

Extremely cool, 10/10, trans-Atlantic high fives all around.

 

I remember that always being my big dilemma in both high-school and college: Whether to buy more music today, or to save for my upgrades which I might be able to afford in 6 months to a year.

I wish that I had taken pictures of my dorm setup, but alas I never did. Although I remember having a highly modified dyna PAS-3 preamp (people were giving these away back then) plus a Carver M 1.0t amp back then, some Snell J speakers, and a first-gen Magnavox CD player. I had saved enough to buy an old used Linn LP-12 TT back then. It only cost me $400 in 1987 though.

 

I assume that this is a unipivot design. But I can't see a clear pivot point in your pictures.

 

@TarnishedEars That’s awesome! I wish I had friends to give me audio equipment these days, but now nobody I know is into this stuff

As for those curious to how my setup sounds, this is a needledrop from my set

69.05 MB file on MEGA

 

In the 1980s old tube gear from the 1950 and 1960s was considered to be obsolete and was therefore undesirable to most people. So people who still had it mostly either gave it away or threw it away back then. It's sort of similar to how today people have to either give-away or throw away obsolete AV receivers. In fact I just gave my son an old obsolete AV receiver of mine to take off to college to use for stereo audio-only next year instead of donating it to GW. I found an old set of bookshelf speakers lying around the garage, and he found an old CD player for $10. Now he has a nice little dorm system to take to college next year.

There is lots of good gear out there for cheap today if you only know where to look for it.

FWIW: Good to see that you are perusing engineering. My interest in audio was what inspired me to first start modifying and building equipment as well as to get my EE degree.

 

For the sake of comparison, here's the turntable I purchased my freshman year of college:



It's a Bang & Olufsen Beogram 3400. I purchased it used for $295 (new price was $495) - a lot of money for a guy making minimum wage at a part time job, but times were simpler then. There was no "gaming", so no console or games to purchase. Personal computers and the internet didn't yet exist, nor did cell phones. So, no need to purchase a computer or cell phone, no ISP or cell phone service with monthly payments. Other than my stereo, which consisted of the B & O turntable, a Marantz 1030 integrated amp, bought used for $100, and a pair of Infinity Qb speakers, purchased on closeout for $207, the only other piece of electronics I owned was a 10 - 15 year old 12" black and white TV my mom had purchased for me at a garage sale for $15.

The B & O was a good turntable that served me well. I was an early adopter of CDs, so it was stored in a spare bedroom closet for about 25 years. When I bought it out of storage, I had it serviced and I continued to use it until I sold it back in 2017. A lot of money at the time, but it turned out to be a good investment.

 

I love the skull banner!

 

Does the Sanyo play CD's?

 

It's not awful. You're in college. The good stuff will come later. Nice to see a young person pick up the format. I don't even own one. ( yet). But, I must warn you. There's some very, very nice rigs out here.

 

I love it so far, especially for home listening. Vinyl can be really easy on the ears.

 

I like that cabinet and the speaker stands!

 

Nah man, it doesn't matter. I had hand-me-down everything back then. You'll be making the fat dough later in life and can then decide what and how to upgrade slowly.

 

Technics SL-1210GAE w/ an Audio Technica ART9XI.

 

Well, here are a couple of mine:

 

Bought new in college? Nice, BTW

 

No--although I had one just like the first one, except in lesser condition, by the time I finished high school. Yeah, you can tell I was one of the cool kids.

But thanks!

 

Actually, you were one of the cool kids.

 

Here is the sideways (the "S" in SUPA) unipivot point. Unfortunately I have no image of it on the CF version but it looks pretty much the same. Only difference is that it does not have a steel thrust plate. The CF is hard enough not to develop a dimple.

 

Thank you! It’s in relation to the anime One Piece