Intermittent sound from Pioneer PL-44S frontloader turntable

[EdMorbius]

Hi. I have inherited this turntable from a friend. It worked fine with my Kenwood AV receiver (via a pre-amp to the Aux Input) until a few years ago, when it became unpredictable. Sometimes I got sound, sometimes not. Tried unplugging and replugging all connections (especially the pre-amp). Sometimes this worked. Then it gave up on me, and vice-versa. Recently it occurred to me I had nothing to lose, so I removed the stylus ( a simple push fit) and then unscrewed the cartridge from its arm, and very carefully slid off the 4 push-on cables to this, freshened the metal surfaces as much as I could. Put it together and it worked beautifully!... for a while. I've done that twice now in the last 3 weeks. Yesterday, it worked beautifully for a whole 2 sides of an LP, which I successfully digitised to my computer. The tone was lovely, no dropout. Went to record a 2nd disc, and it had gone completely dead! There was no gradual deterioration - just suddenly nothing. I'm beginning to think there is a ghost in the machine. Could it be some weird electronic switching rather than simply poor connections? It's driving me nuts.

 

[TLS Guy]

Hi. I have inherited this turntable from a friend. It worked fine with my Kenwood AV receiver (via a pre-amp to the Aux Input) until a few years ago, when it became unpredictable. Sometimes I got sound, sometimes not. Tried unplugging and replugging all connections (especially the pre-amp). Sometimes this worked. Then it gave up on me, and vice-versa. Recently it occurred to me I had nothing to lose, so I removed the stylus ( a simple push fit) and then unscrewed the cartridge from its arm, and very carefully slid off the 4 push-on cables to this, freshened the metal surfaces as much as I could. Put it together and it worked beautifully!... for a while. I've done that twice now in the last 3 weeks. Yesterday, it worked beautifully for a whole 2 sides of an LP, which I successfully digitised to my computer. The tone was lovely, no dropout. Went to record a 2nd disc, and it had gone completely dead! There was no gradual deterioration - just suddenly nothing. I'm beginning to think there is a ghost in the machine. Could it be some weird electronic switching rather than simply poor connections? It's driving me nuts.

Usually turntables are very simple easy to service items. Unfortunately you have a complicated front loading horror. Odd ball turntables like yours were always a nightmare and to be avoided.

You are not going to guess what is wrong with this turntable. My feeling is there is some internal muting switch is giving trouble.

You can register with Vinyl engine and download a service manual. You will need tools and at least an ohm meter to sought this out.

However my recommendation is that you move on to a simpler more reliable turntable.

The bottom line that if the tonearm has to pull about mechanisms like this, it is not a good turntable.

Good turntables just have arms and horizontal and vertical pivots and that's it. There should be no extraneous mechanisms.