Presenting a custom record centering accessory, intended as a very quick and simple way of centering vinyl records with oversize center holes.
This compact and lightweight accessory is simply placed on the center spindle of your turntable over the record and twisted, positioning the sharp edge between the spindle and record hole, taking up any excessive clearance.
Repairing an SA-74 suspension unit, from a Neumann VMS-70 disk mastering lathe, which arrived with the head lift/drop lever jammed in the down position, preventing the top lid from being removed! The Neumann SX-74 stereophonic motional feedback cutter head was still attached, as it had been glued to the mount adapter, which can only be removed from the suspension unit by opening the top lid! Several mechanical and electrical repairs, adjustment/calibration procedures and even a bit of machining on the 1961 Moore Special Tools Jig Borer later, it was fully brought back to original specifications!
For many long years, J. I. Agnew has been examining, adjusting, repairing and replacing bearing systems of all kinds, from disk recording lathes and turntables to tape machines, high precision machine tools, measurement instruments, industrial equipment and all manners of motor vehicles, from passenger cars to heavy trucks. Over the past few years, he has designed and machined countless bearing units to replace worn or damaged units on a diverse range of disk recording lathes and machine tools. Valuable experience was gained, which along with his solid engineering background, was put to good use in improving his designs further and further, up until the current stage of development was reached.
The ultimate vacuum platter is finally here, and it is very reasonably priced. After three years of exhaustive research and development and several prototypes of different versions, along with field testing, we have finally arrived at what we believe is the most advanced and accurate vacuum platter ever made.
We recently had the pleasure of having Symatic over, from Bristol, UK, for a week of training on how to cut (and how not to cut) records.
Symatic runs Cut & Paste Records, a record label attracting some serious attention among skratchers, with high quality releases of skipless skratch samples, lock-groove tones, beats, and relevant music.
A rather optimistic gentleman arrived with a Presto MRC-16 disk recording lathe, inquiring about the possibility of repairing the broken suspension and making a cutter head bracket from scratch. He then asked about the possibility of figuring out some way in which lead-in, lead-out, and track mark spirals could be cut on this machine, which was originally intended as a very basic machine, with no provision for spirals, not even a hand crank. Then came the really ambitious part: He would ideally like to be able to adjust the pitch and if possible, control the lathe through his computer!
One glance at the steampunk aesthetic of the manufacturer's name plate and the overall state of this primitive machine would have been enough to deter the average engineer, in fear that there might be something potentially radioactive hiding within...
For some reason, the people involved with the manufacturing of vinyl records are rather stoic types. The rare occasion when they are in a talkative mood, they mostly talk about the manufacturing process and equipment. They are not often talking about what happens after the records have been manufactured, the actual reproduction of these records, for pleasure or for the most critical step of manufacturing: Quality control.
What follows is the story of the restoration, modification, assembly, calibration and testing, of some components, which, if used properly, can result in a highly accurate phonograph disk reproduction system.
Happy new year! Time to reveal what has been secretly developing in the lab throughout the past year: A stereophonic cutter head of an entirely unique design, invented by J. I. Agnew during his work with experimental transducers for measurement and testing purposes.
Working together with Eric on upgrading his Scully Disk mastering system, Sabine grabbed the chance to give our readers a little peek into the head of an experienced mastering engineer. Eric Conn works together with Don Cobb and a small Dog called Chaco at Independent Mastering in Nashville, Tennessee.
This beauty is a fully restored and extensively modified, vintage Scully lathe, operated by Eric Conn at Independent Mastering, in Nashville, TN.
It started life in the 1940's as a completely manual machine. A sturdy design, capable of very decent results, these lathes were extensively used across the USA and other parts of the world for several decades. Many are still in operation today. In the original condition, they were quite limited in what they could do. But, as with most good lathes, they can take a lot of modification and improvement.
There is a long history of use of precious stones as industrial materials, from precision bearings to cutting tools, lapping compounds to grinding tools and several other specialised applications.
The recording of phonograph records is essentially a machining operation, performed by means of a machine tool called a disk recording lathe. A special cutting tool is used to cut a continuous spiral groove on the surface of a blank disk. This tool is called a disk recording stylus, or simply cutting stylus.
The big difference to other forms of machining is that there is sonic information stored as modulation of the cut groove, which can be reproduced on another special machine, often called turntable or record player, or disk reproduction system.
We are excited to announce that we have just finished assembling and testing the first prototype of the Agnew Analog Reference Instruments Type 710 Disk Recording Pre-Emphasis and Cutter Head Protection Module!
Meet George Vardis, a retired biologist with a Master's Degree in Food Technology, residing in Athens, Greece. George is a sophisticated man with many interests, including sailing, photography, motorbikes, and music. He plays the piano and the guitar, but his career always steered well clear of the music industry. He was never a recording artist, nor was he a recording engineer. In fact, he has probably never seen a recording studio in real life.
Back in 2015, we started a big lathe project, taking a beat-up Fairchild lathe from the 1930's, fitting it with an RCA cutter head, and eventually going full-on with a stereophonic feedback cutter head, vacuum clamp-down platter and automatically variable pitch.
John Delias, the guitar wizard of the popular rock group "Naxatras", filmed J. I. Agnew while cutting the master lacquer disks, from which the vinyl records of their debut LP were manufactured, at Magnetic Fidelity, and edited the footage to produce this short informative video, offering an insight into this seldom seen, mysterious process.