I must tell you of my recent experience in getting turntables repaired. I got a name and a number of one Mr Homyar Masani, from Electronic Emporium, Lamington Road where I was buying some RCA plugs. A few days later, I contacted Mr. Masani and set up an appointment to meet him to get an SL2000 repaired (its speed was inconsistent). He lives in Parel and I in Nerul, Navi Mumbai. So after several days, I finally made the trip. I took the TT and my Marantz and Kenwood amps. They had some small problems. The Marantz had some dust issues which prevented loudness contact from happening and the Kenwood had a LED replacement job pending for a long time.
Anyway, I took them all and went. Now Mr Masani lives diagonally opposite MD College in Parel and having reached there, I called him on the phone and after a few minutes, I located his building and was surprised to find a slightly frail looking old man standing outside the building. He smiled and came towards us (my missus was helping me with the heavy equipment) and offered to carry the TT. I really wondered if he could but there was a certain firmness in his step which dusted off my fleeting anxiety. We went into his apartment, in a building that seemed to be occupied mostly by Parsis. (There I met his old Labrador, Zara, who would woof-woof once in a while during the time we were there. As if she was telling me that she still does her duty.) It is a small apartment and the living room had some other amps and TTs being worked on. Then I told him about the issues with my equipment. He said that he won't be able to give it in a hurry and might take about. I didn't really mind that much having already got that feeling of reassurance after I met him and looked around. He seemed very trustworthy and gentlemanly. (Later, I got to know that he works as a priest at the Fire Temple.) After a few pleasantries, we left. While I don't remember if it was a month or a little more, I was following up with him now and then and finally, he had done them all. I made another pilgrimage to pick them up. He connected them one by one and showed them all to me. They were all fine now. He charged me a sum which felt on the higher side. But after having experienced carelessness and lack of attention to detail at Lakozy and having seen how meticulous Mr Masani was about everything (even the screws), I didn't mind it as much. He also explained to me that the speed will have to be set for every record as the SL2000 doesn't have a Quartz lock. I then drove home, eager to play and check them out. It's been close to a year and they have been doing fine. The absence of a Quartz lock is a pain but livable with.
Now, this was my first experience with Mr Masani. The second one is a bit more recent. I have an Akai AP007 TT that my dad uses in Hyderabad. It had developed some problems. The auto return was not working, it was skipping, the start/cut control was inconsistent, there were speed variations as well. My dad (very naively and trustingly) gave it to Avis Electronics. What he didn't realise was that they were butchers in the guise of technicians. Unsurprisingly, they ruined it even further, disconnecting the auto return motor after having hacked at it, cracking its circular hatch and leaving the wires inside in a mess. I was very saddened as this was the first TT I bought with my own money early in my working life and it had performed so well for so many years. Anyway, I packed it (having learnt from Mr Kuruvilla Jacob how to do it) and got it with me to Bombay. Then I gave it to Mr Masani. This was a little more than 7 months ago. Then I followed up with him every now and then, never putting too much pressure, and he would give me assurances that he will do it soon. He tried to find a new auto return motor for a long time but was unsuccessful. The last resort was to either repair the motor or make the TT manual. An option which, for obvious reasons, was to be left to the absolute end. Then in the last one month, I started putting a little more pressure, as my parents' return from a trip abroad was nearing. Mr Masani was apologetic and told me that he was not keeping well and had other family matters to look into. But this time, he gave me a deadline himself and after a couple of small delays kept his promise. Yesterday, I went to his place to pick up the TT (also a JVC tape deck, which alas, he couldn't fix for health reasons). He didn't have an amp for me to hear it but he showed me every function. All of them seemed to be working just fine. Auto return was happening. Speed seemed to be fine. (I hope the stroboscope was right.) No skipping. All seemed fine. I completed the formalities, haggled with him a little bit (said hi and bye to Zara, the lab, and a frail kitten which now had become a full-grown queen and was carrying as well!) and took an Ola home. I still have to figure out the feet which are a combination of spring and rubber and which now are totally recessed into the four round holes that they should be sticking out of. A trip to Lamington Road to Aziz Rubberwala should help. But I can't wait to spin this old TT and right now everything else, work included, seems so uninteresting. Oh, by the way, I asked Mr Masani his age. It is 75.
