I haven't used my Pro-Ject 1Xpression in about 4 years. The TT is about 12 years old, maybe a year or two older. I've never changed the oil. I'm assuming I probably should before I start using it again regularly?
How do I get the old oil out? How much new oil? What type of oil should I use?
Bearing oil doesn't go bad if it sits. It would sit in any bottle you purchased and you would still be using "old" oil.
Various table manufacturers do sell small bottles of bearing oil (https://www.amazon.com/Origin-Turntable-Bearing-Sufficient-Refills/dp/B007Y3Y0B 6) though you basically need just a light grade of oil w/o additional ingredients. So don't use what you would put in the crankshaft of your car. No food grade oil as it will go rancid.
You could use any light to medium weight lubricant you wish. Some silicone would do or, if you find a lubricant with Teflon in it, you could use that. (https://www.google.com/search?q=silicone+lubricant&rlz=1CAACAY_enUS754US756&oq= silicone+lubricant&aqs=chrome..69i57.5726j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)
The bearing does not come in contact with the walls of the bearing cup. There is a small amount of play which allows the bearing shaft to be pulled towards the motor by the tension of the belt at start up. There's a tiny bit of wobble to the bearing shaft due to this play and the level of play allowed by the belt. The lubricant fills in along the length of the shaft to minimize wear and noise.
So different lubricants can create different noise levels in the table but that's fairly minimal. Wear on the bearing is very minimal. You're thinking of trading off lubricity vs weight of the oil. The bearing constantly wants to fall back to its neutral position. The motor pulls on it constantly but not without times where the motor and belt lacks sufficient torque to maintain the proper position of the bearing. If the platter slows down slightly due to the additional drag of, say, a warped record, then the bearing constantly wobbles and makes noise. So light to medium weight lubricant will allow the motor to maintain constant torque while heavier lubricant will minimize noise.
Think of it all in terms of the dimensions of a record groove and any extraneous movement in the bearing will reach the groove and create noise and loss of information. How transparent your system is will determine how much thought you should put into this. How critically you listen nowdays will also be a consideration.
The bearing shaft typically rides on a ball bearing. The bearing can be the floating or the captured type. I don't know your table well enough to say which you have. If the ball is not captured in the bearing shaft, you have to make sure you don't lose it in the process of changing lubricants.
You clean the bearing shaft out with a long Q-tip and time. After you're removed all the oil you can with a dry Q-tip, do one wipe with a swab dipped in isopropyl alcohol.
Wipe the bearing shaft dry and then add only a few drops (maybe 1/8 to 1/4 of a teaspoon) of lubricant to the bearing well. Replace the bearing and the platter, allow it to take time to settle to the bottom of the bearing well and give it a few spins by hand. The centrifugal force of the spinning shaft should cause the oil to creep up the shaft. Disassemble the bearing and examine the shaft. The level of lubricant required will only be enough to raise the lubricant not quite to the top of the bearing shaft. Use the bearing shaft as a dipstick. Adding slowly is better than trying to clean excess lubricant from the top of the table's plinth.
Rubber parts dry out and become brittle. You need to at least examine the rubber parts of the table. It would be a good idea to buy a new belt. If you've allowed the table to sit with the belt on the pulley, it's a good bet there will now be a slight flat spot in the belt. That can be something you hear as a cyclical noise or a variation in speed. Like tires running over tar strips on a road on the level of a LP groove.
If the cartridge has a replaceable stylus, listen to some music and determine whether the cantilever's rubber dampers have dried out. It will track poorly to the point of causing a shattering sound on dynamics. Early onset of needing a new stylus assembly is a system that can't reproduce macro and micro dynamics well.
Recheck arm set up and adjust tracking force plus anti-skating - if you use it.
If you're relocating the table, make sure it's level in all directions and well supported. It shouldn't sit on a surface that funnels structural vibrations and resonances to the table itself. Once again, think of the extremely tiny dimensions of the stylus in the groove and you want to maximize tracing of the stylus by rejecting any external vibrations.
That's it. Listen and enjoy. If you hear problems, let me know.
Hopefully I'll get some time over the holiday break to spin some vinyl. I've been staring at it for far too long. The speakers aren't set up optimally, and the room isn't exactly a dedicated listening room. The speakers are 'wherever they fit' and I'm ok with it. The system has become background listening, my daughters' dance party and tea party soundtrack, music when I get tired of them watching TV; stuff like that. I'm ok with that, as it won't be that way forever. They'll want to be left alone and want nothing to do with me soon enough
I was diligent about turning the TT on and letting it run without an album on for a while, just so the belt didn't deform, the shaft stayed lubed, etc. I took the belt off after I realized I wasn't keeping up with it. The TT sits on top of my rack, properly isolated, and all that fun stuff.
My biggest concern was and still is the cartridge - Dynavector 10x5. If it's dried out and done, it's going to be a replacement that I can't really afford nor an expense I could justify at this point if I could afford it.
I'll give it a go over the break and let you know how it goes. I think my girls will be dumbfounded and interested in how music is coming from a licorice pizza. And it'll give me a chance to hear a few albums I bought but still haven't listened to yet.
I forgot... Anti-skate is the old fishing line and weight. I'll double check tracking force. It hasn't been moved in about 7 years and hasn't been played much, so I think alignment should be fine. I'll use my headphones to listen closely for that stuff. They're quite revealing and take the room out of the equation. If everything's right, I'll leave well enough alone.
Oil oxidizes. Very, Very slowly at room temp, depending on type. In a sealed container, this process is even slower. I found some 20 year old quarts of Valvoline when I helped clean out my mothers garage. Used 'em in my Lawnmower.
It also depends to a lesser extent on the additives......
Jan, I never expected YOU of all persons to be Anti-Cat. Shame!
"Oil oxidizes. Very, Very slowly at room temp, depending on type.
That's true and if you had told me you had pulled a table out of storage after forty years in the attic, I'd say you should definitely clean out the old bearing oil.
I'm not anti-cat! For goodness sake! I'm saying give your cat a nice shampoo. Rinse and repeat! Not a lot of cat owners take such good care of their pets.
After 18 years as a pet sitter, I can't really think of half a dozen cats I cared to sit. One client had two cats, brother and sister, where the female cat was always looking for attention and playtime. Great cat! She'd hear me pulling in the drive and she'd be waiting at the door with a big cat smile and a wagging tail. I had to pull her off me so I could leave. Her brother, on the other hand, sat across the room hissing at me the entire time I was in the house.
I've had cats jump off furniture to claw my legs. One liked to find me and then sit down next to me. If I moved, she sunk her claws into my leg. She only got to play that game once. Even the owner said she was evil.
Mostly, I left something for the cats and they left something for me. Not exactly a fair trade but, if I never saw them, at least I knew they were still alive. Sat far too many people who had far too many cats in one house. Those were the customers who didn't bother to clean the five litter boxes for a week before I did my first visit. Sat for a lot of people where the aroma told you they had cats.
I'm not anti-cat. I'm anti-evil entity and I'm anti-owners who don't take care of their cats.
I'm also anti-cat owners who let their cats run the neighborhood where they can sit under a bush near my bird feeders and kill the birds.
Now, about that shampoo ... Here kitty, kitty, kitty, I've warmed up your shampoo for you ...
I played about 2 albums and everything seemed great. It's missing that last littlest bit of swagger it had, but maybe the cartridge needs to be broken back in? It's been sitting a while. My speaker placement isn't optimal, but the stuff I'm listening for isn't really that dependent on it. I'm not looking for imaging, soundstaging, etc. Just the musical flow, clean signal, stuff like that.
Perhaps it's my headphones - Etymotic ER4s IEMs. They're very accurate and do the hifi and musical stuff right, but they can sound a bit cold. I ordered a pair of Focal Listen closed back headphones, just to change things up a bit. I wonder how they'll do.
Wait a minute... I set the tracking force lighter than I usually do. The suggested range is 1.8 - 2.2 grams. I used to run it at 2.0 grams as that sounded best to my ears. I went with 1.8 grams to ease the cartridge back in. I figured keep it light for a little while; maybe stupid, but I figured be conservative. I bet that's what it is. Now to go to 2.0 and play a few more albums.
Tracking force of 2.1 grams, and the swagger is back.
I got a new set of cans too - Focal Listen. Great set of headphones. For $130 they're a no-brainer. My Etymotic ER4s are better, but the Focals are a great change. I'm starting to dig this whole headphones thing. They can be cheap enough to own a few pairs without breaking the bank, and you can switch them easily depending on your mood. The Focals and Etymotics are quite different from each other, yet equally enjoyable. They both present the music the way I think it should be, but the approach is different. It's like owning a McIntosh system and a Naim system, and listening to whichever one you're in the mood for.
Only cheaper. I guess a better analogy would have been it's like owning a few different speakers and being able to swap them out depending on what mood you're in.
Headphones eliminate the room. But they have their own inherent compromises too.
I've owned several pair of rather decent headphones, all fairly similar in presentation. I just never cared that much for the presentation of headphones. Never enough "in the room" sound, too much in my head sound.
But they do eliminate the problem of being asked by the other person in the house why I was playing music at 3 AM.
I think the open-back headphones are supposed to lessen the in your head sound. The ones I've had do it better than closed back cans, but not really enough to my ears.
My Etymotics are definitely in your head sound. The Focals are less so, even though they're closed back. They both carry the tune right and no one hears it after they've gone to bed, so it comes out to a positive trade off for me.