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7 inch Turntables
ohfourohnine
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Joined: Sep 1 2005 - 7:41pm

I think you're at least 50 years too late to find what you're looking for. That long ago, when acne was more to me than a word, I had something close to what you describe. I think RCA made it, but I'm not sure. The spindle fit the center hole of the old 45 singles and you could stack several for auto changing. The arm was appropriately short, not that we knew anything about tracking angles. It was mono, of course, and was a record player not just a turntable - with a 6" or 8" speaker. Semi hi-fi? Not even close, but who cared it played loud and the bass was pretty strong - or so we thought. It was rock and roll, and we loved it. Sonically, relative to today's expectations, the records we were playing were nothing special and I'd guess that might also be true of the 45's you're interested in converting to digital. Odds are you're looking at a long project with a disappointing outcome. Even if your 45's have never been played, and you didn't describe them that way, you'd be likely to find the sound wanting. Given the damage done to them by the equipment they were played on..... Well, you get the idea, I'm sure. Lots of good rock has been reissued on CD, and some of the collections are fun and pretty cheap.

Jim Tavegia
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Joined: Sep 1 2005 - 4:27pm

This sounds like some other issue to me. I have some 45's that sound OK on both my Rega and my old Project one DR220. I am not expecting the same sound is from my pristine lps, but...The other issue is mono vs stereo. I am assuming that your lps sound fine on the Music Hall. I am thinking phase reversal, but if your lps are fine that will not be it either.

Jim Tavegia
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Never mind. I went to my home office where my vintage 70s system is and pulled out my old Horst Jankowski Walk In the Black Forest 45 along with 2 others and gave them a spin. THIN AND LIFELESS IS ALL I CAN SAY. No wonder I do not play them often. I double checked the cart allignment all was right on. Now I know why when I was a kid and listened to Chicago's WLS on my transistor radio late at night I thought it sounded good. What did I know? Not much about great sound thats for sure.

Buddha
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Joined: Sep 8 2005 - 10:24am

Greetings.

There are no dedicated 45 rpm hi-fi rigs that I've ever seen or heard of, but there are a few 45-specific things that may help a little:

1) Readjust your tracking angle on your cartridge for the smaller discs. Since the needle will be spending all its time inside its usual total travel arc, realign your cartridge to be most presice at a point in the middle of where a 45 disc would be.

2) Adjust your anti-skating by ear and see if you can "tune it" to your 45's. Purely my opinion, but I think sometimes the 45's can exert different skating forces than you would expect from playing LP's.

3) Try a slighly higher tracking force. You can experiment with very small increments and see if you can lock in a better sound.

Cheers!

JoeE SP9
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Joined: Oct 31 2005 - 6:02pm

I pulled out some of the old 45RPM records I've collected over the years. I realize now why I never play them. I dragged out an old mono cartridge and installed it and adjusted my tone arm for best replay and lo and behold, every 45 I played sounded awful. The only exception was a 45 issued by Stereo Review of 4 Frank Sinatra songs. That was just tolerable, not in any way high fidelity. I do have a couple of direct to disk recordings that require a playback speed of 45RPM. They are all 12" in dia. and sound fabulous. Ordinary 7" 45's just were not pressed to sound good. You say they can sound good. Compared to what, eight track cartridges?

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