Rescuing my new Hitachi PS-10- Vinyl Engine (2024)

Hello all --

I'm a longtime vinyl lover but only recently started fooling with vintage equipment, I'd love some suggestions on tuning up this baby, photo attached. It's a Hitachi PS-10 from sometime in the 70s, I bought it off Ebay in mint cosmetic condtion. The previous owner even included the original packaging and manuals, as well as the transport screws and everything else. It's truly a timewarp and I'm loving the looks of the thing.

The downside: Audible wow/flutter/(whatever's hip to call speed control problems) on the outer tracks of LPs. Piano notes sound cracked, warbly vocals etc. It's subtle but even some non-audio nerd ears have picked up on it.

So far, I installed a new AT-95E green cart, my fave, which needed a 3 gram headshell weight to put the arm in balance, set it to 2g tracking force and eyeballed the alignment. Installed original anti-skate weight, belt replaced, spindle and motor lubricated at the indicated points with 3-in-1 oil. Cleaned the capstan and belt hoop on the platter. With the belt removed, the platter spins smooth and silent for eons. Belt doesn't seem to be hanging on the 'gearshift' lever or rubbing anywhere else.

Increased tracking force to 3g, might help a bit, I've tried it both ways and I'm not entirely sure.

What should I do next? Try to disassemble and clean the motor somehow? I'd love tips from somebody in the know. If the community would value photos or scans of the original docs I can provide them.

first off id buy a new belt;even what seems a tight belt can be stretched and cause speed problems.

im guessing this is an AC motor,but if its DC dirty speed control pots can cause problems.

also 3-in-1 all is a big nono for turntable and motor bearings! attracts moisture from the air and isnt the right viscosity,SAE40 compressor oil is easy and cheap to get and wont absorb water from the air.

id also give the bearing a good clean with alcohol and some qtips,keep rubbing until you dont get any more dirt after applying the solvent,or use a dremel with a soft felt cleaning tool.

if all of the above fails probably an idea to take apart the motor,theyre pretty simple and easy to work on,especially old ones.

It's an old school AC synchronous design AFAIK. The belt has already been replaced and everything's clean that I can get to, I guess I'll be pulling the motor out tomorrow.

Thanks for the oil tip -- i actually have compressor oil for my air compressor, imagine that.

Interesting Deck, it looks similar to many Japanese decks of that time.

These kinds of problems are hard, and some of my decks suffer similarly. As has been said , getting a good known belt is essential as many after market belts are too thick. This tends to make decks run too fast, rather than erratically.

You have identified that the platter spins smoothly for a long time. With the mat removed if you listen closely , do you hear any chafing or grinding . im guessing not.

The other things to check are that the deck is level on the top metal plate. Id guess that the deck decouples the top deck from the plinth with springs or rubber mounts. The springs might have once had foam dampers which might have perished, and maybe worth replacing.

The motor possibly attaches to a plate which hangs on three rubber mounts. These decouple motor noise from the top plate, arm and platter. The rubber mounts may have deteriorated, or at least hardened, causing the motor to sit wrong relative to the platter. If the motor sits irregularly it could affect the speed stability. The mounts might respond to some rubber restorer, i use platanclene printer roller restorer which is cheap and works, brings the rubber up nice and dark and supple .

I resorted to stripping the ac motor, not a trivial task , when i was trying to solve some motor noise in my Pioneer which looks similar to your Hitachi http://mr-ives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/r ... table.html . Its quite hard to get it aligned during reassembly. I should add that I'm still not sure its as good as it could be, i too detect some pitch shift on piano notes, but of course this could be due to off centre pressings , too large holes or simply instruments that were tuned more Honky Tonk

Thanks for the guesses, guys. I pulled the deck off the thing today, it's really in astonishingly good shape under there. The four corners have isolators that are all in good shape, same for the three motor mounts, the one that gets the compression load has a spring inside and is made of a whitish silicone or urethane type material. All are pliable, I don't know what they felt like in 1973 but either way there's zero audible noise or vibration in the deck while the platter spins.

This model is basically identical to your Pioneer, the motor is at 8 o'clock and I have the dingly anti-skate weight instead of a knob adjustment but the rest is basically the same.

I relubed everything with compressor oil as was suggested. I've ordered a test record off EBay, I'm hoping it will have some steady sine wave test tones on it so I can know for sure if I'm not just hearing compromised recordings.

I've been listening to Madman Across the Water and I think I might just blame Elton's piano tuner on that one, most other albums I have sound pretty good. Almost all my albums that involve piano are him, it would be real funny if all I've proved is that I don't know how Elton John sounds.

Almost enough to make me want to buy one of those new Chinese Technics 1200 ripoffs.. :?

On the bright side, this AT95 cart I had stashed away still sounds better to my ear than anything else I've heard. Then again, I like Pabst and Taco Bell, too..

Remove the platter, and touch the point of a pencil to the side of the turning pulley. This will immediately tell you if there is any eccentricity from a bent motor spindle.

Cheers,
Alec

Thanks Japi!

Spindle and platter checked, both good. Maybe my records just suck. I noticed some of the records I hear this effect on aren't perfectly centered pressings.. Good thing I can march on over to United Record Pressing here in Nashville and demand a refund on my 30 year old copy of "Ol' Waylon"...

So sounds like you and i are at about the same place in terms of wow. If use the Vinyl Engine printable strobe disk , which you can print off from the Tools link at the top of the page, i see a steady speed but the bars oscillate slightly. This might be down to the paper being not flat mind :)

I guess the only other way is to get another deck, one with direct drive and a quartz lock and see if the problem occurs there. I too have that Elton album and a few others, and i think his piano is slightly tuned for that bar room sound. Another tool is the smart phone app iRPM, which is fun, you sit your phone on the platter and it tells you its speed.

Assume also that there is an oil hole for the motor ? On the pioneer you drop oil through a rivet which drips onto a trough in the top of the motor and feeds the top bearing which has a felt collar . The lower bearing on the pioneer never gets oil, which is partly why i stripped the motor. That and insanity.

I've lubed the standard points already but have not yet disassembled the motor or platter bearings.

The design of this platter has the bearing installed in the platter itself as opposed to being on the bottom spindle, I'm not sure how to get it out or if it's pressed in place. Anybody have a thought?

And how accurate is iRPM exactly? I just DL'd it and it's showing a wavering number between 29.6 and 30.3 RPM as it spins.. High speed at 2 o'clock, low speed around 8 o'clock.

Yuck.