[Mark-sf]

Lucy, welcome. Your turntable is over 50 years old and likely needs at least a new stylus and a stereo amplifier or receiver that has a Phono input or a separate phono preamplifier to connect to the former. To find service possibilities, you’ll need to share your location as that model was sold globally.

[Mark-sf]

I am not familiar with the Armando; however, CAT7 cable is not intended for analog audio use even when it’s shielded. Frequently, a hum issue will be the result of either a coupling problem due to proximity of AC mains lines when run with the CAT7 in the walls or a ground differential issue or loop between where your turntable is plugged in than your system across the room.  Since the RIAA amplifier in the 7000 is not a balanced output there is no common mode rejection along the signal run. I would approach determining which type of hum you have by running a CAT7 cable across the room in lieu of you in wall set up. If the hum goes away you have in-wall coupling which may be mitigated by using isolation line transformers to convert your single ended connection to balanced on bot sides.  If the hum is sill there you then have an AC mains grounding issue, and you need to disconnect the grounded shield from the Almando end. You also might try reversing the mains plug on one side if its a 2-prong one.

[Mark-sf]

Craig, thanks for the kind words. Here is a photo of one with the Grado Signature. I would also replace the tonearm wiring with silver wire and the phono leads with Varian Audio cables. Finally, there was an optional PhonoAmp board that replaced the muting one with an onboard DC-DC power supply to give it +/-15V.

[Mark-sf]

What you have is the packing box of the cartridge that would come when it was included with the turntable. They provided specific models with specific turntables. The retail packaging for the cartridge was much larger and had the model on it. This cartridge is upside down hiding its model and the cantilever looks skewed, so I would avoid.

[Mark-sf]

Nebojsa is correct. I was a B&O dealer back then.

[Mark-sf]

Actually, I developed this mod (using a custom internal socket versus p-mount) back in the 1980’s using the Grado Signature series of cartridges. It got an excellent review from Harry Pearson at The Absolute Sound. I still use a variation of it today with a Kiseki Purpleheart moving coil.

• This reply was modified 1 week, 5 days ago by Mark-sf.

[Mark-sf]

I believe you can find Millard equivalents as FCH111 for the 131/111 chips and FCH191 for the 101. I have not tried these but they are listed. It’s very rare for these to fail in normal use.

[Mark-sf]

I was not referring to to the solenoid screw adjustments you referenced. The correct one to address the OP’s issue is the adjacent damper cylinder screw that regulates the air flow as its piston prevents the arm from dropping with a thump.

[Mark-sf]

While there is no muting delay adjustment as on the later models, you should be able to eliminate the thump by adjusting the damper cylinder set screw. The are should lower in between 1 and 1.5secs.

[Mark-sf]

I would focus on the components around the 1TR14 portion of the electronic switch and I would also reflow solder connections in that area.

[Mark-sf]

1D16 is a Zener diode that is supposed to set the base voltage of 1TR5 which turns on the lamp in the detector arm. If it shorts it not only will not keep the lamp off but will pull down the 22V rail that will impact other circuits such as the solenoid driver. Glad you got it working again.

[Mark-sf]

First, if you are only getting 18v then there is still a power supply problem. I would work backwards to see where the voltage drop is occurring. You could still have a bad cap or transistor. As to 1R36, you may have a bad Zener diode, 1D17.

[Mark-sf]

You may have an issue with the 22v DC supply that feeds both circuits. Lowering the arm with the cuing control does not need the lamp working. Check that you have 22.8V on the high side of 1R42 and 12v on the collector of 1TR11 when the table is on and the arm is stopped before the record. If this table has not had a capacitor replacement, it is long overdue and where I would start. You can get a service kit for your model here.

[Mark-sf]

For your system, going to the SMMC2 would be well along the diminishing curve with the rest of your system. The SMMC3 is the sweet spot.

[Mark-sf]

I cannot recommend turntable needles.com as I have no experience with them. Any of the MMC cartridges will work with your table; however, if it was me, I’d go with the SMMC3 from Soundsmith. B&O used them for the release of the Beogram 4000C  using an SMMC20CL. This gets you the nude hyper-elliptical diamond where the 4 is a bonded diamond.

[Mark-sf]

I really doubt it and actually am quite appalled. Here they are offering a limited edition $30K system and only supplying an MMC4 cartridge! As an alternative to Soundsmith (which I have used) there is turntableneedles.com that advertises new MMC cartridges.

[Mark-sf]

The 4002 employs both static (weight) and dynamic (spring) tracking force adjustments. With the dial at 0 you need to adjust the rear counterweight using its screw so the arm floats with 0 tracking force. Then the knob should apply the specified force by adjusting it to your cartridge’s requirement.

[Mark-sf]

B&O cartridges are not very sensitive to capacitive loading. Simply adjust your setting by ear but remember that the cables are already going to contribute to the value.

[Mark-sf]

Those controls are actually photoresistive and depend on a lamp on the board to operate. It likely burned out, or there is a bad solder connection.

[Mark-sf]

ALF, those jumpers most definitely need to be removed as they are shorting the inputs to the outputs which will cause oscillation. Glad to see you got it working, Enjoy!

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