Wiz33
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- #1
Going through all my old audiophile stuff I had in storage and saw the Pioneer PL-L800 sitting on the shelf. I recently setup a Sony PS-HX500 to rip all my old LPs to 24/96 so I decide to take the pioneer home and see if it still works.
I blow out the fine layer of dust on the unit, especially around the linear tracking bar and did a full wipe down and powered it up. All the control seem to be working fine, arm move up and down and side to side so I hooked it up to my Pioneer Elite SC-LX904's phono input and put a LP in it and hit play. Arm raised up moves over to the correct spot and lower onto the lead-in area, was afraid that the stylus foam on the Dynavector 20B2 would have harden/disintegrated through the years but it seems to play fine. Volume is a bit low, turns out that the newer receiver does not support MC cart on their phono input and the only reason I got sound at all is the 20B2 is a high output MC with 3.5mV out. Not up to the usual 5mV of a MM but much higher than the usual 0.5mV of a MC. Got a NAD PP 2e on the way so will see if that helps.
It was certainly a surprise that everything still work on this thing as the linear tracking mechanism is a fairly complicated piece of machinery and google search shows a lot of people is having problem with 2nd hand units. I guess having it stored in a enclosed (no sunlight) cool and dry area helped. Now I have to dig through and see what I have stored away. I know my stuff but some of the stuff dates back to my father which means tube amps, preamps and vintage 50-60 stuff, might be a few gems in there.
I blow out the fine layer of dust on the unit, especially around the linear tracking bar and did a full wipe down and powered it up. All the control seem to be working fine, arm move up and down and side to side so I hooked it up to my Pioneer Elite SC-LX904's phono input and put a LP in it and hit play. Arm raised up moves over to the correct spot and lower onto the lead-in area, was afraid that the stylus foam on the Dynavector 20B2 would have harden/disintegrated through the years but it seems to play fine. Volume is a bit low, turns out that the newer receiver does not support MC cart on their phono input and the only reason I got sound at all is the 20B2 is a high output MC with 3.5mV out. Not up to the usual 5mV of a MM but much higher than the usual 0.5mV of a MC. Got a NAD PP 2e on the way so will see if that helps.
It was certainly a surprise that everything still work on this thing as the linear tracking mechanism is a fairly complicated piece of machinery and google search shows a lot of people is having problem with 2nd hand units. I guess having it stored in a enclosed (no sunlight) cool and dry area helped. Now I have to dig through and see what I have stored away. I know my stuff but some of the stuff dates back to my father which means tube amps, preamps and vintage 50-60 stuff, might be a few gems in there.