Lenco turntable (old)

[GhostHighway]

I have an old Lenco turntable that runs at 16, 33, 45 and 78 rpm

Never had a 16 and 78 rpm vinyls... but sometimes is very funny to play records at this speed

can you imagine how sounds AC/DC at 16 rpm ??
or Neil Young at 78 rpm ??

I'll try to post some pics soon

[opcode66]

16 2/3 is half of 33 1/3. So, half the audio fidelity of a 33.3 record. In other words, horrible sound quality.

One of the main uses of the 16 2/3 speed was for automobile record player systems. The idea was to have a record player as an alternate to your car's radio. Yep, prior to tape decks in cars, there were record players. Never really caught on. Very problematic from what I've been told. And, the sound sucked.

I think they also used 16 2/3 speed discs to record lo-fi aural dictation. So, spoken word, no music. Imagine something like an audio book on record. I believe they were actually being developed for the blind. Limited frequency range to maximize recording time. At 16 2/3 you could get something like 50+ minutes on one side of a 12" record.

Finally, on a record cutting lathe (not a playback device/turntable), 16 2/3 is used for Half Speed Cutting. You can also half speed cut at 22.5 for a record playable at 45. The trick is to feed the audio to the lathe at half speed. In cases of tape playback as the audio source, the spools were set to rotate at half the normal rotational speed. Do do this you have to also have a modified RIAA eq curve set one octave lower than normal. The end result is hypothetically a record with better defined highs. The disadvantage is that you'll be missing one octave of your low end.

[markrob]

Hi,

One of my favorites was Bruce Springteen's "I'm on Fire" sped up from 33 to 45. It turns into a C&W song by Dolly Parton

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AtNecByo1o

When I was a teenager, I used to annoy my parents by playing the B side of The Plastic Ono Band's single, "Cold Turkey" at 16 RPM. The tune (if you want to call it that) was, "Don't Worry Kyoko, Mummy's Only Looking for a Hand in the Snow". It was crazy enough at 45, but at 16, it sounds like the Creature from the Black Lagoon getting crushed in a trash compactor.

Mark

[Techie]

Showing my age - A Four Tops LP played at 45 sounded like the Supremes. A Supremes 45 played at 33 1/3 sounded like the Four Tops.
Yes, I know there are only 3 Supremes and 4 Four Tops. Not splitting hairs. I was 7. Cut me some slack.

[Angus McCarthy]

IIRC, Seeburg piped-music systems used 16 2/3rpm records to save on recording space. If you get ahold of any of the old discs you could play them on a consumer deck with that speed.

http://www.seeburg1000.com/

[tragwag]

I had a laugh playing a Rollins Band 45 at 33 the other day.
turned the sort of fast rock riff, into the most brutal drone I've heard.

[Angus McCarthy]

Oh, I just remembered! We had some bizarre fun playing LPs at 16 at one point too. We made up some secret society when we were younger and went full out with an induction ceremony - fake latin responsive readings and candles and everything. Throughout the whole thing, in the background, I had Vanilla Fudge (which if you have heard it, is already a pretty psychedelic record on its own) playing at super-slow 16. It perfected the atmosphere

[Techie]

How about Alvin and the Chipmonks played at 16...3 grown men singing silly lyrics painfully slow and over articulating. That's when I discovered the voice of Alvin is actually David Seville.

[Serif]

Remember my recent Dub Stepper blog? I thought I was stuck with a too weak motor when I flipped it to 45 rpm and noticed that my polystyrene (flat) 45 rpm / 7" of the hardest working man in show business, covering Harrison's, "Something," sounded like JB had drunk some JB. Turned out that, at the maximum CW setting for RCA, the motor controller was only able to play a 45 on my 16" 40 lb. tt at 44.5 rpm (one half-revolution per minute shy). It almost sounded right, but there was obviously too much libation in the studio that day, or was there?

I determined the speed issue by playing my CBS test record (STR100), and watching the 1 kHz test tone (3.54 cm/sec/channel/RMS at 33 1/3 rpm) and looking at the frequency on the FFT window of SpectraFoo (version rad3f17, for Mac OS 9, using good ol' DP3... The A/D converter was high end and the PCI card was an RME DIGI96).

I was trying of course to get 1 kHz to play back at exactly 1.35 kHz. Why? Because 33.333333333... divided by 45 = 0.740740740740740... 1 kHz divided by 0.740740740740... = 1.35135135135... kHz.


But the most it would go to was 1.308 kHz. There is variable speed because the vendor doesn't know the size table or belt you will use. I e-mailed Lance, the e-Bay vendor, but it was the weekend and I didn't hear back immediately, so I got curious and noticed that there are four DIP switches inside the controller. When I took delivery, the left three switches were all up and only the fourth DIP switch was down. With courage, or folly, I switched the fourth one up and turned the power on. Nothing. So, I then switched it back and confirmed that all was as before. 1.308 kHz. Then I decided to push the third and fourth ones down, leaving the left two up. Speed increased. I was in a new window of power and had to rotate the 45 rpm variable speed switch CCW in order to tune the speed of the tt to play the 1 kHz 33 1/3 rpm test tone back only at 1.35 kHz. Also after tuning, there was still free play on either side of the setting of the switch, which is nice, and I was able to retune the 33 1/3 rpm setting's variable speed knob to make the tone play back at exactly 1.00 kHz while in the new power generation mode. A minor miracle. (:

Also. Lance did e-mail back and, when I explained what I did, he said it was good. "...Dear Audiophile!"

- Disc Jacques-Yves

[GhostHighway]

is not possible to upload pics directly to the post??

[GhostHighway]

This is the one that i have Lenco L-78
but this video is not from my turntable

http://youtu.be/jfkqDIjE2gc

[Angus McCarthy]

is not possible to upload pics directly to the post??

No, you have to upload them to a third-party site, like Photobucket, and link to them.