1970's GEC SOUND DECK WITH TURNTABLE

easyrider · 3 Jan 2015 at 22:57

My dad gave me this...I remember using it in the 70's I'm thinking of cleaning it up and connecting it to my onkyo 876 amp and playing with some vinyl.

What are the connectors on the front....it has a built in amp but I'm wondering if the outputs are these two sockets? It's the only output on it apart from the headphone output....cheers

It's a GEC A5019H and it says made in the UK on the back and on the turntable itself....I'd love to get this thing back rocking again....

lucid · 3 Jan 2015 at 23:16

Those are a pair of microphone sockets.

easyrider · 3 Jan 2015 at 23:40

lucid said:
Those are a pair of microphone sockets.

Ok...thought they might be....I guess the only way to output is through the headphone output ....

The speaker connectors at the back require two pins? :confused:

cyclops12 · 4 Jan 2015 at 00:25

Ahh I had a music centre just like that in my bedroom when I was a kid

Don't remember much about outputs apart from I had four speakers hooked up to the two speaker connections in the vain hope it would be louder

BlackBat · 4 Jan 2015 at 01:36

The sockets for speakers on the back will almost certainly be 2 pin DIN sockets which you can easily get hold of, all you would need to do to connect some speakers up using it's built in amp would be to solder some speaker wire to a couple of connectors and then attach some speakers to the other end. The small pin on the connector is the positive (+) and the large pin is the negative (-).
I'm not sure how powerful the speakers would need to be or what impedance though on that particular model and you may find it'll probably sound better being amped by your Onkyo anyway. In my limited experience music centres of this period tended to have speakers rated at 4 ohms impedance, so anything rated higher would be easier to drive and other models in the GEC range that I can find info. on were apparently rated between 7 and 20 Watts, I don't know anything about this specific model though. It's a shame you don't still have the manual although you can apparently purchase and download the service manual online, but I wouldn't know whether this would contain the necessary info.

kitfit1 · 4 Jan 2015 at 19:52

Could you take another photo of it with lid open so we can see the record deck ?
From what i can make out from the pic, the record deck itself looks like an SP25 MKii.
If it is, you could run the output from the arm to a cheap MM phono stage, then from that to your Onkyo. They never were the best of record decks, but were certainly a lot better than the cheap starter decks around now days.

easyrider · 4 Jan 2015 at 20:22

kitfit1 said:
Could you take another photo of it with lid open so we can see the record deck ?
From what i can make out from the pic, the record deck itself looks like an SP25 MKii.
If it is, you could run the output from the arm to a cheap MM phono stage, then from that to your Onkyo. They never were the best of record decks, but were certainly a lot better than the cheap starter decks around now days.

Yeah sure sounds exciting give us a min

lucid · 4 Jan 2015 at 20:44

The Phono pre-amp isn't a bad idea actually, but it will involve some fairly major surgery to get as the tone arm cables somewhere that they aren't going to pull on the arm and cause it to skip or mis-track.

If the turntable is as good as say a Dual, Revolver or Rega then I'd say it's worth the effort. Chances are though that you're looking at something the equivalent of a BSR with a simple and inexpensive stylus. I think I'd be tempted to buy some vintage Wharfedale Lintons, Dovedales or similar for £20-£25 and play the system "as is".

easyrider · 4 Jan 2015 at 20:46

easyrider · 4 Jan 2015 at 20:51

lucid said:
The Phono pre-amp isn't a bad idea actually, but it will involve some fairly major surgery to get as the tone arm cables somewhere that they aren't going to pull on the arm and cause it to skip or mis-track.

If the turntable is as good as say a Dual, Revolver or Rega then I'd say it's worth the effort. Chances are though that you're looking at something the equivalent of a BSR with a simple and inexpensive stylus. I think I'd be tempted to buy some vintage Wharfedale Lintons, Dovedales or similar for £20-£25 and play the system "as is".

I don't really have the space for more speakers...

I wanted to put it on top of this....

I have to say the quality of the cassette mechanism is lush

kitfit1 · 4 Jan 2015 at 20:58

As Lucid said it might take a bit of "surgery", but could be worth a punt.
Looking at your pics, it is a BSR. But it is also a Garrard SP25MKii. They were widely rebagded during the 1970's. Have a look at the Cartridge on the arm and see what it is. It was quite common for them to be fitted with a Shure M75ED MKii. If it is let us know.

EDIT: No it's not an SP25MKii.............................it is a BSR. Still worth a punt though with a cheap phono stage.

easyrider · 4 Jan 2015 at 21:06

kitfit1 said:
As Lucid said it might take a bit of "surgery", but could be worth a punt.
Looking at your pics, it is a BSR. But it is also a Garrard SP25MKii. They were widely rebagded during the 1970's. Have a look at the Cartridge on the arm and see what it is. It was quite common for them to be fitted with a Shure M75ED MKii. If it is let us know.

EDIT: No it's not an SP25MKii.............................it is a BSR. Still worth a punt though with a cheap phono stage.

How do I check the cartridge?

http://exceptional-av.co.uk/pro-ject-phono-box-m-mc.html?gclid=CLut3rqk-8ICFccSwwodQjsAPw

How would I connect it?

MY amp does have a PHONO input?

kitfit1 · 4 Jan 2015 at 22:36

If you take the cabinet apart, you will see 4 cables coming from underneath the arm and they will terminate onto a board. One pair will be left, the other pair will be right. Unsolder them and then re solder them to a pair of terminated phono cables, then pug them into the MM stage of your Onkyo, you should be good to go. If there is a "ground" on your Onkyo, connect that to the "ground" on the record deck as well. The output from these types of cartridge was very low, so should work with a MM phono stage.

lucid · 5 Jan 2015 at 00:01

I recognise the BSR deck because it's the same as one I used to own when I was 12. The cartridge body is built in to the headshell. The needle is that bit that says ST16. The LP.S bit is for playing regular singles (45's) and LPs. The needle is double sided. If you flip it through 180 degrees so that the legend on the other side is uppermost when fitted in to the arm, then from memory (35+ years ago) I think it might read 78. If it does then for heaven's sake don't use that on your vinyl. It'll plough a new furrow!! :eek:

It's safe when you can see the LP.S legend when looking down on the deck.

The 'needle' (stylus) is cheap as chips; around £6 to £9. The styli you have might be okay, but just in need of a clean. However, the chemicals and microscope required for the work will cost way more than £9, so for the sake of it if you're going to all this trouble then I'd chuck a tenner at a new stylus just to be sure you're not dragging an old dirty diamond around your record collection.

The trickiest thing in this plan to divert the wiring is going to be working out the grounds and signals. It's easy to get the polarity of one channel inverted, and that will mess up the sound.

If BSR followed the convention, then the wires should be colour coded. The signal colours are Red for right and White for left. These go to the centre pins on each phono plug. The grounds are a little trickier. Red ground is Green. Left ground is Blue. These go to each ring connection on the phono plugs. Cables can lose a bit of colour definition with age, so a quick wipe over with a damp cloth should help. If you are red green colour blind then get some help with this.

If you look at the pivot of the arm there's a screw adjuster. This is for the tracking force. Unless you have scales that weigh in 1/100ths of grammes then leave this alone. The box with the stylus probably gives the tracking force, but without something to measure it then just leave things where they are.

easyrider · 5 Jan 2015 at 12:10

Thanks for the info guys...On a scale of 1-5 do you think its worth it?

I like the idea of using it...But if the quality is not there I may reconsider....

Portpunter · 5 Jan 2015 at 12:21

With music centres of this type, it would be highly unlikely that they would use a mm cartridge, they would probably use a ceramic cartridge, which has a much higher output.

Therefore a pre amp should not be required (just plug in to aux input on amplifier), also by the way ceramic cartridges process the signal, RIAA equalisation is not required.

kitfit1 · 5 Jan 2015 at 20:09

easyrider said:
Thanks for the info guys...On a scale of 1-5 do you think its worth it?

I like the idea of using it...But if the quality is not there I may reconsider....

In all honesty, it's not going to be the best sound quality. But it's free, so worth a punt if you don't have much vinyl.

Portpunter said:
With music centres of this type, it would be highly unlikely that they would use a mm cartridge, they would probably use a ceramic cartridge, which has a much higher output.

Therefore a pre amp should not be required (just plug in to aux input on amplifier), also by the way ceramic cartridges process the signal, RIAA equalisation is not required.

It is a ceramic cartridge, but in the 1960's and 1970's the output from these was very low and on a par with latter MM cartridges.

gEd · 6 Jan 2015 at 00:33

easyrider said:
Thanks for the info guys...On a scale of 1-5 do you think its worth it?

My folks had virtually the same model as one back in 1978. Its sounded crap even back then when still quite new and one one of the first stereo's that I had heard. (I incidentally took it apart to see how it worked and could never get the string back on the tuner knob correctly).

So I think it will sound dire through a modern hi-fi and I wouldn't put any decent vinyl anywhere near it.

(I don't rate it)

easyrider · 6 Jan 2015 at 18:52

gEd said:
My folks had virtually the same model as one back in 1978. Its sounded crap even back then when still quite new and one one of the first stereo's that I had heard. (I incidentally took it apart to see how it worked and could never get the string back on the tuner knob correctly).

So I think it will sound dire through a modern hi-fi and I wouldn't put any decent vinyl anywhere near it.

(I don't rate it)

kitfit1 · 6 Jan 2015 at 19:13

easyrider said:

Lol......................don't worry about it Easy...................he is almost certainly correct. But it's not going to cost you anything to do what we have already discussed. Must admit though.................if there are any costs involved, don't part with too much lol.