[BC] Turntable arms

[David Reaves <david@translantech.com>]

I was working as a DJ at a free-form rock station in the mid 70s, and
Greg Strickland was the CE.
The station was a full Gates installation, from transmitter to
turntables and, it seemed, everything in between.

We referred to the Gates CB-77 'gear shift' turntables as the
"heartbeat of the station," because of their almost but not quite sub- 
audible rhythmic thumping (though you might not have noticed on a
Pink Floyd record).

I remember Greg spending ages weeding through idler pucks to find
those that minimized the thumps. <g>

Eventually he and a new PD somehow convinced the owner to do a
complete 180: replace the turntables with SP-10MKIIs, SME 3009
tonearms, Shure V-15 cartridges and Dynaco pre-amps in an isolated
cabinet.

Those were the days when a well-run FM station could be truly the
highest-quality source of audio most consumers had access to. Without
a doubt, in our little college town, ours was. Along with other
improvements (e.g., buying an RE-20 to replace the 635A, and a brand
new Optimod 8000), Greg was able to turn that dump into a sonic
showcase.

After Greg (and then I) left, the SMEs weren't maintained very well,
the owner lost interest in purchasing $150 of new stylii every thirty
days, and the station became well-known for frequently skipping records.


David P. Reaves, III