Technics 1200 maintenance :.:.:

mesh

mesh

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Thinking of taking the babies in as they are three years old and havent been serviced. Nothing wrong with them, but I use pitch control heaps when mixing and I don't want it to get out of whack.

does anyone have advice/experience about maintaining Technics in general, either yourself or professional ?

cheers :teeth:
 
Yeah, work on them quite a bit, mostly replacing tonearms with broken headshell connectors or replacing the RCA/grounds. If you can solder and understand the technical manual, then you should be fine - if you aren't confident in those areas, take it to a service professional. Most of the service places will be $$$ though, plus the $$$ of shipping - if you have something wrong with MK2's it is often more cost effective to replace them then repair them. Roughest part is rigging it so it is suspended upside down without damaging the tonearm, powerswitch, light, or pitch adjuster. Best pieces of advice I can give:

1) See if you can find a broken one for spare parts.
2) Double check those solder points!
3) If you aren't confident, don't bother even opening it up.
4) If you do open it up, go ahead and upgrade the RCA's to Monster cables or similar quality, and replace the ground wire while you are at it. Also, go ahead and spray out the dust with canned air.
5) Work on it somewhere where you can plug it up and put a needle on it while it is still disassembled to test the signal by touching the stylus - big time saver!
 
Never worked on 1200's but have worked on my Numarks. Nothing too complex under there if you know your electronics. I had to replace a broken ground wire on mine, as well as glueing the sound out panel back together. Was a bit fiddly but seems to be ok. Just got to replace one of the headshells now as its become all loose. Seems to be one thing after another at the moment!:rinsed:
 
damn just posted about this in the general forum, i think my magnet or motors fucked up cause it won't keep a steady pitch. Any suggestions?
 
JimJapBap said:
damn just posted about this in the general forum, i think my magnet or motors fucked up cause it won't keep a steady pitch. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

Take it to a repair place and get a quote. Often, with M3D's it is practical to get the pitch control fixed rather then replace the whole $500 deck.
 
im starting to think now that maybe my magnets fucked cause when i haven't been mixing i've been placing speakers on top of em with the protective covers on my 12s(yeah i know im a dumbass). I just realized the strong magnetic fields coming from the speakers when i put em like a foot away from my TV and it made half the screen turn purple and blue. So now im guessing the polarity of the magnets could be all fucked from the constant exposure. Would you know how much it is to replace the magnet/platter?
 
gads, hadn't thought of that. One of my speakers is about 2 foot from my right-deck (mmmmmm - monitor!)
They're not very powerful speakers, but whats the speaker-magnet gonna do to drive-magnet in this case? Anything?
Havent got any probs, but is this likely to cause them? Does replacing the pitch control necessitate a new drive-magnet too?
and so on ...
:rtfm:
 
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