Have you ever noticed the total absence of audio equipment from the luxury houses presented in glossy architecture and interior design magazines? It makes the inhabitants of such property come across as rather uncultured.
In fact, not only is an audiophile grade sound system a minimum requirement for the home of anyone affluent enough to hire an interior designer, but it is important to choose a designer who can appreciate the aura of sophistication and intellect projected by a beautifully restored vintage disk recording lathe, set in a handcrafted custom cabinet, in a conspicuous corner of the living room!
Tasos of Epos Laboratory (a Grado retipping specialist) from the beautiful south of Greece is the lucky owner of this 1950's Rek-O-Kut disk recording system.
It consists of a Rek-O-Kut Model V 16" turntable, which he found in the USA (where else?) as a non-runner. The motor was in bad shape and refused to run at all. Even if it would run, it was expecting to be fed on a regular diet of 110 VAC/60 Hz!
As with the vast majority of disk recording lathes of US manufacture, this 1956 Rek-O-Kut Model V was configured to spin at the correct speeds when powered by 50 Hz mains. One of our customers imported it from the USA and wanted to run it at 230 VAC/50 Hz European mains power. We have encountered this situation countless times by now. We recently also described how we converted a Presto MRC16 to 50 Hz operation by making new rubber rollers to different dimensions, while some years back, we developed the first version of Type 191, a stable electronic frequency converter for professional disk mastering lathes, which are often impractical or costly to convert by other means (Lyrec direct-drive motor on Neumann lathes, belt driven Scully lathes, gear-driven Fairchild systems, etc).
