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Clearaudio Concept Tear Down

Had a moment last night, and decided to take my Concept apart. Thankfully, curiosity didn’t kill this Jazz Cat...

This was spurred on because of a noise coming from the motor. That, and when I started looking into the noise, I noticed the pully was vibrating. Not good.

Pulled it all apart, removed the motor and cleaned the pully which had a coating of rubber. Suspect that was part of the vibration problem. I also added some damping in all the motor mounts in the form of electrical tape.

When reassembling, I made sure to tighten everything down properly, including the diy spiked feet I made for it. Noise and vibration from motor were gone!

Was quite surprised and the improvement when I had it up and running again. Better dynamics, clearer highs and a more transparent mid.

Super pleased, and quite frankly surprised at the improvement.

Any others have experiences like this?
perkri
perkri OP
909 posts
 
Thanks! Interesting read.

Wonder what this might do to the 1200uf 450V power caps on my Tube Amp?

All the internal poly caps are strapped down and the plastic mounts they are attached to are attached to the chassis with foam tape.

Another interesting possibility 
lewm
13,220 posts
 
I'm just curious.  You say the pulley was coated with rubber.  Does the rubber represent wear on the (presumably) rubber belt, or is the rubber coating part of the original build of the pulley itself?  If the latter, what did you do to the rubber coating in the course of fixing the problem?  Because I don't see how anything you did would directly address the problem "vibrating pulley".  The measures you took would tend to counteract the problem but not directly fix it; the pulley should not be vibrating, obviously.  Thx.
perkri OP
909 posts
 
Hi.

The rubber was a build up from the belt. Created an uneven weight distribution on the pulley which I suspect unbalanced the pulley causing the motor to vibrate. Because of the motor mount being attached the way it was, this vibration was making its way through to the stylus.

P

lewm
13,220 posts
 
I guess the proof of the pudding is in your observation that the pulley is no longer vibrating.  That's the endpoint I didn't see mentioned before now. I suppose you replaced the belt, as well.  Better to use a belt that does not deposit a coating on the pulley.
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