An Automatic Turntable Rescue

    I found this Direct Drive Fully Automatic Onkyo turntable (CP-1027F) at Good Will last week. This was manufactured from 1981 to 1983. I know I sound like a broken record (player), dad joke, but vintage electronics really don't get put out on the GW's store shelves anymore. They typically go straight to GW's online auction site which I dare not speak its name.

    I thought it was weird that the hinges for the scuffed and cracked dust cover were missing. The turntable mat and the 45 RPM adapter were also AWOL, but none of these were deal breakers. 

    I plugged the player in the store's test outlet, and the light next to the Power button lit up. That was a good sign.

    

    When I pressed the Play/Reject button, the player hummed for about five second and then shut down. Pressing the Cueing button did nothing. These are not good signs.

    The platter began to spin when I manually moved the tonearm toward the spindle. The speed also changed when I pressed the 45/33 button. Also, the cartridge and stylus were intact, so I could do test runs without spending risky cash on those. Okay, now we were onto something. 

        I could have a maybe-working manual turntable for $17 ... Why not? Sold!

    The turntable's base needed cleaning, but it wasn't that bad.  

    I removed the bottom cover after giving the base a wipe down. This is the mechanism that controls the tonearm's movement (or lack thereof).

        My guess was that old grease was keeping the auto-functions from working. A thread on Vinyl Engine supported this idea. 

    The red gear in the middle is my problem. That, and the sliver e-clip that holds it in check. Both were frozen in place, and that explains why the Play button was making nothing happen. The motor would try to turn its worm gear, and Red was having none of it. 

    I don't have a tool for removing tiny e-clips, so I bent this cheap fork to help me out. I thought I'd use it to pull the clip off its post, but I ended up pushing it off instead. 

    Whew. The clip went flying, but I found it.

    The red gear was really stuck on the post. I couldn't pull it off with my fingers, and I was afraid that pliers would damage the gear's teeth. I dropped oil down the gear's center hole and let that sit for 30 minutes. Then I used the fork "tool" to pry the gear up and off. I was lucky. The gear wasn't stripped and was easily cleaned with isopropyl alcohol. 

    I lightly greased the post and the other gears' teeth once the red gear was safely out of the way. Then the red gear and the clip went back in place. I'm not gonna lie. Getting the e-clip back in place without breaking or losing it wasn't fun. These clips go on hard.

    I wonder how long it's been since that tonearm moved on its own? It felt pretty good to see this thing in action. Yay!

    What didn't feel good was the audio test. Now I could only get sound out of one channel. Boo.

    I took things apart and looked around. I somehow had torn the red tonearm wire off of its solder point. It's been a minute since I've soldered anything, so I watched a few YouTube videos for a refresher course, and then reattached the wire (flux is your friend) to the spot marked "R+".  And we were back in business. Hello, stereo.

    

     This is where the automatic turntable should place the tonearm when I press the "Play"button.  

    When the music is over and the stylus has reached the run-out groove, this is where the tonearm should rise and return to the cradle. 

    My problem was that the tonearm might do that right, but often it was dropping the needle halfway into the first song, and then later it would endlessly ride the run-out groove until I hit "Reject". The service manual explains ways to adjust the lead-in and the auto-return positions, but they require cutting wires or soldering in jumper wires. I found a YouTube video with a simpler solution of bending metal and turning screws, but I decided to think about it more before doing either of those things. 

    If the tonearm movement was always misaligned, then I could see making adjustments. But it was right some of the time. I watched some YouTube videos of owners showing off their same models of this turntable, and I noticed something. My tonearm slightly wiggled horizontally when it was set in motion. Their tone arms were rock solid when they moved. 

    I began to suspect there was something wrong with the pivot assembly that guides the tonearm, but I didn't know how it was put together. I found a seller on eBay that was parting out a turntable like mine, and they had taken apart the piece I wanted to see inside of. So helpful! 

    Turns out there's not much going on in there, and the only reason I could see why the tonearm wiggles is that the screws that hold the tonearm in place were loose.

    There's a small lock screw in the middle of the larger screw.

    I have had this screwdriver set for decades. It's amazing how many times it gets used every year. I loosened the lock screws and then turned the larger screws in to tightened them. That got rid of the wiggle. I haven't had a problem with the auto-functions since, so I think that fixed that problem.

    I kept the price tag on in case I wanted to return the Onkyo. Now GW only extends refunds for store credit, but that's better than their old "no returns" policy.

    Ummm, yeah. I guess I'm keeping it.

        Cosmetically, the biggest offender was the dust cover. Cracks can't be hidden, but deep scratches can be lessened, and light scratches can sometimes be removed. The cover still isn't great, but it does look presentable. 

    Here's my plastic cleaning crew in order of use.

    The dust cover hinges on the Pioneer PL-4 that I keep at school fit the Onkyo perfectly. I ordered a pair from eBay, and that should solve my last problem.

    

    Parting shots and thoughts:

    The turntable mat and the 45 adapter are leftovers from a previous turntable project. I'm currently using a clear acrylic mat on the Technics I recused last year. This is still a $17 turntable as it sits today. The new hinges will push the cost to $56.76. That's still pretty good for working piece of audio history.

    If I do keep it, then I'll spring for a new stylus. There's a replacement on LP Gear for $56.25 (not counting tax and shipping). I might leave that purchase for the next owner.  Cartridges and styli are a matter of personal choice. 

    For now, I'll put it in my lineup and make sure it really is working well.  

    I'd like to thank the Onkyo for helping me get out of my February funk. Honestly, that short month is not my favorite.

    

    I think I'll use this slipmat. It works with that thick, silver platter.

Valentine's Day 2026: Group Photo

 

    Hey, not everybody loves Valentine's Day.

    1981's Canadian slasher My Bloody Valentine is good time, and I think I'll give that Blu-Ray in the middle a spin tonight since I'll have the house to myself.

    I probably wouldn't have bought the soundtrack on LP, but Waxwork Records slashed the price in half last Feb. 14, for a one-day-only sale. I thought that was pretty funny.

    For a long time the DVD on the left was the only way to see the uncut version of the film. Wow, this newer edit goes a lot harder than what I watched on HBO back in the day.

Unplanned Listening Parties

    I bought Tone Loc's Loc'After Dark on a whim. I thought it would be fun to hear "Wild Thing" and "Funky Cold Media" again, and that would be that. Nope. I listened to the whole album.

        I didn't have a choice.

    As soon as the first beats of "On Fire (Remix)" filled our basement, Ellie, our Great Pyrenees, sprinted down the stairs, tore around the corner, and sat right in front of where I was standing. She was wildly wagging her tail. I thought for sure she wanted to go out to the backyard to potty or play, but the tail stopped moving when I asked her.

    I rubber her behind her ears with both hands and asked, "What do you want then?" She stood up, walked over to my chair, and stole my seat in a single jump. 

     "You like this music?" 

    

    She thumped her tail once on the arm of he chair.

      I sighed and look the smaller chair next to her. She thumped the chair a few more times in thanks. Then she closed her eyes. For the next 50 minutes we enjoyed Tone Loc's gravelly raps.

    This has happened before. I knew I could move about the room as much as I wanted. I could even leave the basement. I just couldn't turn the music off. If I did, then she would slide off the chair, slowly walk out of the room looking at me from over her shoulder with her tail dragging on the carpet. Then she would go upstairs to pout. 

    It's quite a performance. 

    

    Also, I'm a pushover. 

    

    A couple of days later I gave John Mayall's USA Union LP a test spin. I brought this home from Goodwill because it was in decent shape and I thought it looked interesting. 

    No offense to the memory of the late "Godfather of English Blues," but I wasn't feeling his no-drum vibe. I was reaching for the tone arm when Ellie and our cat Bo quickly entered the room together.

    Ellie took my chair again, and Bo parked himself on the album's gatefold sleeve. I was stuck again. 

    

    I put my foot down after playing side two and moved onto a different record. Neither one minded. They were asleep. 

"Mixing It Up" with Vintage Electronics pt. 2

    Last summer I began watching the YouTube channel Born2beRad. While the host was talking about his favorite physical medias, I could see a small tube TV in the background silently playing a movie. I really liked the idea of placing a small TV/ DVD combo unit in the corner or on a shelf and playing random movies on mute. It's the media equivalent of a lava lamp.    

    I revisited my old haunts and came up empty handed.  After a few weeks of no luck, I decided to use what I already had at home.

    This trio is on a book case in our basement. I've written about the 13" Panasonic TV before. Char used to use it for playing Animal Crossing on the Game Cube and later on the 360. She has since moved on to the Switch. I like the Panasonic DVD player because when you first turn it on the words "Welcome to DVD World" scroll by on the display. I often say back, "Why, thank you." A friend at work gave me the JVC VCR. 

    

    I could use a blu-ray player with the CRT TV, but I'd have to change the player's output resolution to 480i and I didn't want to think that hard. DVDs look great on this old TV as it is.

    I had a lot of fun in December playing muted Christmas movies like How the Grinch Stole Christmas along with various Christmas LPs. It was like giving the film a new soundtrack.

    I probably would have kept these three in action for quite some time, but I think I found a replacement. I had an appointment last Wednesday, and that gave me a few hours to kill before I picked Char up from school. I got to go thrifting at time when I'm usually working. That's when I found this.

    It's an Emerson TV/DVD combo with a 9 inch screen, and it stands proudly at 12 inches tall. This CRT is exactly what I have been looking for. The size was right, the price was right ($15), and it had been well taken care of. The only problem was there was no remote. Usually this is a deal-breaker for me. Experience has taught me that buying the missing remote can easily cost three times what I paid for the player. This time I ignored my own rules of thrift.

    I discovered that if I played a movie and the DVD's menu selection was already highlighting "Play," then I'd be good to go. I could press the "Play" button on the unit, and the movie would fire right up. I was out of luck if anything else was highlighted on the menu. 

    Gemini universal remotes are my favorite solution in a situation like this. The remotes from this era have codes that even work with Laser Disc players for crying out loud. 

    Find what type of device you want to control (DVD), find the brand name you have (Emerson), follow the steps for entering the first code (241), and then press the power button the remote. If your device turns off you're golden. If not, then repeat these steps with the next code. 

    

    Pro tip: Try adding a 0 in front of the code number if none of the listed codes work. My correct code is 0247.

     It works!

    It took me awhile to discover that I had to press the "Menu" button twice before trying to navigate the DVD's menu. If I didn't, then I'd switch the screen from DVD to TV static and have to start all over and watch the introduction programing again. Irritating. 

    Using the Gemini remote did allow me to change the display language from Spanish to English. That was nice.

    So, I now had a basic, working remote for the TV. I could have stopped there, but I went shopping to see if I could find the correct remote. 

    See what I mean about finding the exact remote that you need being expensive?  It was time to do some more research.

    

    The CRT Database states that my CRT, "Requires a compatible remote with a "Picture" button in order to access picture settings (Emerson, Sylvania, Symphonic, Magnavox).

    Hmmmm... a "compatible" remote? Let's look for similar remotes from those other brands mentioned...

    

    To make a long story short, I bought a Magnavox remote for my Emerson TV.

     The Magnavox remote is a little discolored from age, but that's okay. So am I. And for once a remote was actually cheaper than the player's price (by ten cents). The button layout was exactly like the Emerson's. The function names were slightly different: "Standby/On" vs. "Power,"ect... but I had hopes this wouldn't be a waste of time. 

    It wasn't. Every button on the Magnavox eemote works with the Emerson TV. I'm stoked to have a fully working TV/DVD combo. Thanks, CRT Database!

It's another mixed match that works just fine.

"Mixing It Up" with Vintage Electronics pt. 1

    I like playing CDs with my old Pioneer CD player, but taking out the 6-disc magazine to play a single CD is a somewhat of a clunky process, but whatever. This image from the Pioneer manual can explain it better than I can.

   I spotted a solution while shopping online for another cartridge. Pioneer made a magazine the size of a 6-disc that would mimic the action of a single, sliding disc tray. Pretty cool.

    My new problem was that most online stores were sold out (see above), or the magazines for sale on eBay were too expensive. 

    While shopping I noticed that many 6-disc magazines looked alike despite being labeled with different company logos. I found a single disc magazine for a Denon CD player on eBay that looked like it would work, and it was quite a bit cheaper than a Pioneer one. 

    I asked AI if they could be compatible. 

    Sorry AI, but I didn't believe you. I bought the Denon one anyway.

    

    

    Here's the Denon in it's new Pioneer home. Fits like a glove.

    

    I like how enthusiastically the magazine ejects, "Pow! Here's your disc, friend!" It's the show after the show. 

    I suppose I could cover the Denon logo with paint or tape, but that would ruin the fun. Things don't have to be all matchy-matchy all the time.

Another "Give it Time" Repair

     I wrote about letting "broken" machines work their problems out for themselves in my last post. 

    I'll continue that theme with this Pioneer 6-Disc CD player that I found at the Johnston Goodwill.

The Pioneer turns 30 next year.

    

  It wasn't much of an investment at 10 bucks (I round up). The price tag mislabeled this as a DVD player, but that happens a lot if a member of Gen Z works in the back. This CD player was born before they were, and they might not have seen one before.

    I took the player to an outlet in the store to take it for a test drive. The eject functioned, and the 6-disc magazine popped right out. 

    The magazine was full of the previous owner's music (mostly pop-punk and a folk outlier*). I returned the magazine and watched as CD 1 disappeared into the player and the play counter started moving. It looked like we were good to go.

    I tried getting the Pioneer to move from CD 1 to CD 2 when we got home, but that was a bust. The results were the same for the other CD positions. The Pioneer would only play the first CD.

    Well, shoot. A multi-disc player isn't very useful if it only plays one disc. I considered removing the cover and cleaning the laser lens, but the Pioneer was reading CD 1 without a problem, so I didn't think a cleaning would do much. I was leaning towards taking the player back for a refund.

    Then I considered the CDs. There were six in the magazine. The Pioneer must have been able to play them all at some time in the past, and I seriously doubted the player was broken when it was put into storage.

    Of the six CDs, this one was the most recent. The aptly titled Resurrection from New Found Glory was released in 2014. This made me think that the player had probably only been sitting alone in a basement for a decade or less. I guessed he just needed to get off the couch and stretch his legs. 

    It was time to anthropomorphize the Pioneer and see if he could work out his own problems. I thought, You know what, buddy? You like playing your first CD so much, let's just let you do that for awhile. And that's what we did. I hit play, he loaded the CD, and I walked away. 

    He was done playing the CD fifty minutes later. Okay, friend, let's do it again. Lather, rinse, repeat. Then something happened during the fourth round. At the end of  last track, there was a new noise. It was the clicking of the CDs' trays as they were trading places. 

    He's playing CD 2! Yay!

    I gave him the afternoon to work it out, and he did. By the evening he had successfully played all 6 CDs in order. Nice work, my friend.

    Last night I filled the Pioneer with Xmas CDs, hit the "Random" button, and let him make me a mixtape. He jumped from track to track and tray to tray for an hour without a hitch. 

    

    A CD player's purpose is to entertain. I'm glad he gets to do that again. 

    

    *FYI: The other CDs left in the magazine were Gravity by Our Lady Peace, On the Impossible Past by The Menzingers, Only by the Night by Kings of Leon, White Crosses by Against Me!, and O.C.M.S. by Old Crow Medicine Show.

A "Give it Time" Repair

    Aaron Kaufman was one of the car builders on the reality TV show Fast N' Loud (cancelled in 2020). He said something during one episode that has really stuck with me. I cannot remember his exact words, but Aaron said something like, "There is a certain spirit in old cars that makes them want to run." 

    I really liked the idea that an old car has an inherent desire to do what it was built to do. 

    Now, to be clear, I don't think machines are alive or self-aware. But I do use this idea when I find something that appears to be broken. I anthropomorphize the object by mentally saying to it, How can I help you do what you were designed to do?

    I have learned over the years that sometimes I just have to give the machine a little time to work it out for themselves.

    Take this kitchen timer as an example.

    

    I used to use this at school to time student speeches. I've got a smart phone now, so I thought I'd take the timer home and use when I grill. It wasn't working when I took it out of my desk, but I blamed that on a dead battery.

  I popped in a new battery when I got home. No dice. The screen was still blank. I cleaned the contacts for the battery to no avail. Whacking the timer against the heel of my hand didn't help, either. I was considering grabbing a screwdriver when Daphne walked into the kitchen and asked me what I was doing.

    I explained what was going on, and added at the end, "I could just throw it away, but I think this guy really wants to work. I'm just going to leave the battery in and let it sit for awhile. She smiled and lightly shook her head at me. 

    I checked on Taylor the Timer an hour later. The screen was still blank, but there were signs of life when I spun the battery with my finger. The screen would flicker incoherently. Encouraged, I let him sit on the dining room table overnight.

    His screen was still blank in the morning. I picked him up and gave him a slight tap on his back with my finger. That was all he needed. 

   

    Daphne was walking our dog Ellie at the time. Char and I had to leave to get Char to jazz band rehearsal, so I left Taylor sitting proudly on our kitchen counter where Daphne was sure to see him. I got this text a few minutes later.

    Taylor worked flawlessly the two times we grilled together, and he was wide awake when I took these photos yesterday. 

    Sometimes the first step of a repair is to not use a tool at all.

Halloween 2025: Group Photo #31

 October 31: Halloween's back, baby!

    From left to right: Betamax tape, VCR tape, Criterion Collection LaserDisc, DVD, novelization paperback. 

    Yay! I made it. 31 displays in 31 days. I haven't blogged in awhile, and I was feeling rusty. It's been nice to brush off the cobwebs. 

    That was fun, but not as much fun as this: 

    I moved here in August of 1992, and for the past 33 years my favorite holiday has been anticlimactic. The calendar would flip to October 31, but trick-or-treating was already over. Boo. That's not a scary Boo, but a sad one.

    Last year severe storms were predicted for Oct 30, so many towns in the area pushed "Beggars' Night" to the 31st, and guess what? Nothing bad happened. At least that what I was told. We had parent-teacher conferences that night, and I didn't get to hand out candy on Halloween night, again. I had my Flix Brewhouse employee costume all ready to go, and I didn't even get to wear it.

    That's another sad Boo. 

    But this year is different! After a survey was taken by Des Moines city residents, the Des Moines City Council voted last March to permanently move trick-or-treating to the 31st of October. Many local cities, like ours, made that move, too.

    I actually stopped my car and got out to take this picture. Yay!

    I'm not gonna lie. The name "Beggars' Night" has always rubbed me wrong. I'm so glad that tradition has been retired. 

    Our tradition, since 2018, is to project a Halloween family film on the garage door and hand out bags of popcorn and packages of M&M's. That combo is our favorite movie snack.

    I'm leaning towards showing Happy Halloween Scooby-Doo, but I know for sure what I'm wearing tonight.

    As the kids say, "Rate the fit."

Happy Halloween!

Halloween 2025: Group Photo #30

October 30

    Look out! The 31st is right around the corner (and it's holding a knife). 
    I had planned to blog about 1978's original Halloween on the actual day, but my friend Tim surprised me with an October gift, and I decided to stretch this topic to two displays for the last two days of the month. 

    From left to right: The first Halloween film is tense, violent, and scary, but it's not very gory. Still, to air the movie on network TV, they cut some scenes and added 12 minutes of new scenes that were shot during the filming of Halloween II. The "Extended Version" DVD is that television edit. It was released by Anchor Bay, and came with a 16mm "Original Film Cell" display.

    Tim gave me the Halloween / Ash vs. The Evil Dead cartridge for the Nintendo Switch. He also gave me the 35th Anniversary Blu-ray that's next door. I've known Tim for over 20 years, and I might have mentioned Halloween one or ten times to him. Thanks, bud!

    I've bought a handful of UMD movies for the Sony PSP after my friend Robert gave me one for Christmas back in the 2000's. I still have it, Rob, and it still works great! Thanks, again. Of course, Halloween was my first pick.

    The Halloween 25 Years of Terror DVD is still sealed. If I haven't watched in 22 years... I think it's headed to the donation box.

    This is the best Flix Brewhouse souvenir glass I have ever found while thrifting. And that's saying something.

  

Here's a closeup of the film cell. 

Halloween 2025: Group Photo #29

 October 29

    Here's a shelf for 1981's Halloween II. From left to right: a DVD actually purchased new from a big box store, Betamax tape from Goodwill, novelization from the Animal Lifeline Thrift Shop, I found this LP soundtrack at Goodwill at the same time I found the soundtrack for Halloween III. Trust me, I looked for the OG soundtrack, but had no luck. The Blu-ray came from Amazon (snore). 

    When I was growing up the kids in Rock Valley organized themselves into four TV camps: Camp C, Camp H, Camp S, and Camp WDHC. I was in camp H.

    C = Cinemax

    H = HBO

    S = Showtime

    WDHC = We Don't Have Cable

    I was in 7th grade when Halloween II came out on HBO. I had a couple of friends from other camps come over for a watch party while my parents were out for dinner. We accused each other of being frightened when the film got tense, and we all denied being scared at all after it was done. Halloween II ended at 8:30, and the night was very dark when we went outside. 

    My friends yelled and laughed defiantly into the darkness as they mounted their bikes and sped out of the driveway and into the street. Like me, they knew there was nothing to be afraid of.

    They did, however, make sure to only ride underneath the street lights as they pedaled home as fast as they could.

    I went back into the house, quickly turned on all of the lights, and hoped my folks would be back soon.