New acquisition - 4th EMT Turntable
- Thread starter anilva
- Start date
reubensm
Well-Known Member
Sad to see these pictures, looks like only AIR or Doordarshan can perform these acts 
navinsinha
Active Member
It is really very Sad to see an awesome machine in such a state!!!
kuruvilajacob
Well-Known Member
What do they know about these machines. One person who bought one EMT send the arm to a specialist who was very critical about the neglect of AIR people and their knowledge about these machines. I am not surprised. Most of them may not even know what this is used for.
M
mpw
Guest
Sad to see these pictures, looks like only AIR or Doordarshan can perform these acts
even if this one example is - dont be too sure about AIR or DD being the only ones..
its easy to vilify..
and reactions follow swiftly that derails the topic to another planet.
I think DD or AIR staff don't do it intentionally. They have used the equipment well as long as they were in the studios. Once they are dismantled and stored as piece of discarded equipment they can do very little to protect as Govt employees.
Even in private sector so many of used AV equipment including amps, projectors are regularly discarded and thrown and then sold to recyclers. Nobody bothers or takes care of them. Same story.
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reubensm
Well-Known Member
Yes, same with the private sector. In the org which I work with, our Laptops are changed every 4 years and projectors are often discarded after the lamp fuses.
Govt guys are quite the same, dad used to work for DoT, at times one could find brand new unpacked equipment lying around, untouched but rotting.
Nevertheless, great job with your restoration anilva, theres a special happiness that radiates when one sees something saved like this.
and projectors are often discarded after the lamp fuses. Govt guys are quite the same, dad used to work for DoT, at times one could find brand new unpacked equipment lying around, untouched but rotting.
Nevertheless, great job with your restoration anilva, theres a special happiness that radiates when one sees something saved like this.
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csricharan
Member
Your restoration is all the more appreciated now that we get an indication of its earlier state. Lovely. Would love a closer look someday [emoji4]
Some pictures of before state!
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Gerry_the_Merry
Well-Known Member
Anilva - you should now take a video of your restoration and post on youtube and open subscriptions...! Well done again.
Taking a video when you are working seriously is a pain, and one needs to have the camera mounted on some stand etc. Probably I will take snaps next time I do a restoration. I am planning to to restore one or two EMT 938s to put up for sale in order to fund my expensive hobby.
Cheers
sanjivnayak
Well-Known Member
That is really great, I cant imagine the number. But can I request you to advise me the best 2 or 3 TTs that comes in a price range of 20K to 50K. Should I go with built in preamp ? I am using Marantz NR1606 and KEF Q500/Q200c/Q400b.
kuruvilajacob
Well-Known Member
I just bought 4 more EMTs . I have not got them in hand as I was busy with my son's wedding. I am also planning to fully refurbished them to the specs from the manuals. Though I have played several cartridges through the EMT 938 MM phono preamp, I think it can be bettered with a separate class arm fitted on separate arm board and connected to cartridges like Denon DL 103. The EMT to sound really good in Original MM preamp would require a professionally refurbished tonearm. I feel the AIR supplied tonearms need lot of work done to it for it to sound with the quality EMT would have designed the arm. I had sold one EMT to a HFV member who got it professionally refurbished and it sounds as good as Turntables costing 10 K Euro according to him.
Congrats. Hope you get them refurbished to a good level of refinement.
I disagree with you on EMT tonearm being bettered by other tonearms. It is one of a kind 3 axis dynamically balanced tonearm. I am not sure if you have heard full spec EMT tonearm with EMT phono preamp and it’s MC daughterboard. It’s in a different league. Putting any other tonearm would defeat the design of EMT turntable. It’s sacrilege!
Ofcourse if you don’t have a good EMT tonearm to go with the table, you can try other options. AIR tonearms can be restored to full spec. There is nothing that can get damaged in a EMT tonearm. You can adjust wrongly, wire it wrongly and align it wrongly but cannot damage it other physically mangling it. Let me know if you need help.
Cheers.
kuruvilajacob
Well-Known Member
Thanks Anil. I know that the arm and phono preamp in the EMT are excellent. I have not completely dissembled the EMT tonearm and reset it as I have done on a much more complicated Stacks UA 7 tonearm. So my guy is capable of doing it. I will try it this time. I am not contemplating a MC board . So what are the better MM cartridges which can go with the original tonearms ? I have tried Shure V15 and Goldring GX 1006 and 1012. But the Goldring matches my SME 3012 better and Ortofon professional tonearm even better. Are there any other I can try with better compliance ? Regards
You must try the MC board, in case you want to take advantage of a EMT. Can't have a Mercedes and put old non-radial tyres. MM was used only for broadcast purposes, where AM/FM bandwidth does not give you full HiFi. More than 90% of the EMTs used for home use, are paired with a MC and in particular the EMT TSD15 SFL cartridge. I am not for a minute getting into the debate of MC vs. MM, but the higher end cartridges are MC and not MM.
As regards MM options, the EMT tonearm pairs with low/medium compliance cartridges and not high compliance ones. Typically Stanton 500, Shure M97, Sumiko Black etc. I am sure Goldring and Grado have options in low/medium compliance range.
kuruvilajacob
Well-Known Member
Thanks Anil. I know how good some of these good MC cartridges are. I have a Dynavector low output cartridge myself. But I have recently been trying a few mm cartridges on 100 K ohms capacitance on my vintage Sansui AU 7900 and AU 9500 amplifiers. They have taken me to a higher level of listening. Also most of my records though in very good condition are all pre-owned ones. Even on my Dynavector cartridge, I play only the best records. All my favourite records can only be played on MM carts though I can play many of them with Denon DL 103 . So, I am trying to optimise MM options on EMT. When I had once by-passed the inbuilt phono of EMT and used a Denon DL 103, the results were far above most of my Hi-end turntables. But I sold that EMT. I may go that route without altering any of the internal connections. That to me is close my level of expectation from a TT. Regards
@kuruvilajacob: I've also experienced good results with 100K and 68K loading on various MMs (together with various values of cap loading, and not necessarily the lowest cap value that's typically the "stock" recommendation).
And the best results I've ever achieved on DL 103 is with 1K instead of the recommended 100 Ohms. Some like 500 Ohms too.
It's definitely worth experimenting with both MM and MC.
And the best results I've ever achieved on DL 103 is with 1K instead of the recommended 100 Ohms. Some like 500 Ohms too.
It's definitely worth experimenting with both MM and MC.
Your Mileage May Vary!
If one were to buy a EMT and use it as a Direct Drive motor platform, it is not doing justice to the investment according to me. There aren’t many high end turntables beyond EMT today, other than modern designs which use space age materials to give the same level of performance. The EMT needs to be used as a full package to get the EMT sound. Anything else is very variable.
Regards
Although I do not own an EMT, had done quite a bit research on it. What i found was that a stock EMT machine is one hell of an optimised system where everything from the Cartridge to the plinth and everything in between is all engineered to work as one acoustically synergistic system- mechanically and electrically. And if it all works well it is one of the truly high end systems (TT + Phono) you can find today.
That said the only thing which has kept me away from an EMT is my own technical limitations due to a self guiding principle that with a TT I want something i can fix on my own ..and hence a suboptimal but a very easy to fix Lenco !
That said the only thing which has kept me away from an EMT is my own technical limitations due to a self guiding principle that with a TT I want something i can fix on my own ..and hence a suboptimal but a very easy to fix Lenco !
kuruvilajacob
Well-Known Member
Thanks again Anil, I am trying to get as much information as possible to ensure atleast one of the EMT is as close to the original specification as I can and then I will take it up from there. We should not waste these precious jewels unless there's no other options. Thanks for all the inputs. I am going to take up the challenge.
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