Lube for turntable - What do you prefer?

In that case he should know the answer!

It depends, as I said, on the tolerances of the bearing and also on the materials inside the bearing.

With that information a mechanical engineer with lubrications expertise could make a recommendation based on real knowledge. Recommendations from audiophiles who use different tables would be useless, and I've already posted many useless things here! ;-)

Doug

Guys,

I have sound, after careful research that oil is the better choice for lubing the bearing...

It is a low tolerance bearing with plastic sleeves and thus the oil be better.

Thanx anyway - what I want to know is what do you find works best in your machine?

DV

Being a mechanical engineer, I can tell you that it is fairly straigh forward to pull out a machine design text and look for lubrication weight formulas. It's all based on hydrostatic forces created by the oil between two rotation cylindrical surfaces.

The tough part is determining the clearance between the two bearing surfaces. I seriously doubt you find such informoation in the turntable manual.

Long story short, its just like Dougdeacon said- large clearances need grease (often called bushings) and small clearances need oil (often called journal bearings).

On my rega planar 3 I replaced the stock (80w hypoid gear oil) with 140w Mobil synthetic gear oil (SHC 634) and the sound improved very noticeably.

I think Lucas has the best answer, but it is worth experimenting with viscosity, as a more viscous oil can better damp the bearing, and reduce rocking.

I have an oracle alexandria with a worn upper bearing. Not sure what oracle reccomends, but they told me to run something heavier. I am running the silicone type stuff that is meant for the well tempered tables with great success, the sound quality was very dramatically improved. It is VERY thick and a pain to clean up. It got rid of almost all of the sibilance I was experiencing.

If you have an oracle, the upper bushing/bearing is likely worn.

Just thought I would chime in with some experience I had last week.