On Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:42:49 GMT, "Arfa Daily"
wrote:



Anyone reckon I can rob the crystal from a piezo ceramic pickup to fudge a
functional and "as original" repair?
I assume piezo-ceramic is not prone to this problem over 40 years.


As I recall, ceramic cartridges do not have anything like as much output as
a genuine crystal type. Why not just replace the whole cartridge with an
SX5H or whatever ? I seem to think that Dansettes were fitted with a
comparitively 'modern' type such as this, anyway.


ISTR that cheap record players that just had a single valve output
stage and no pre-amplifier used a "High-output" cartridge. (Is that
what the H in SX5H means ?) a standard output cartridge would be very
quiet and a ceramic quieter still.

Also FWIR that output valve would typically be a UL84 or similar (not
as a rule EL84), with 100ma (80v) heaters fed off a tap on the shaded
pole turntable motor, to save the cost of a filament transformer.

The crystal cartridges didn't need any excitation voltage.

DG