Good evening. I’ve acquired a lovely Goldring Lenco GL 75 with a two-pin power plug:
I want to fit a standard plug; is it as straightforward as chopping that one off and attaching a modern one? I’ve had the turntable open and I think I can see where the live (red) wiring is, so do I just trace it back and determine polarity in the new plug from that? I’d rather not fry this…
Probably. I wouldn’t worry too much about live and neutral, more about 230vAC/50Hz. Is it a UK market turntable? If so then go ahead. In the late 70s and 80s lots of mid range hifi and better “music centres” had multiway mini-plugs or daisy chaining power to save on taking up your one or two sockets in the living room.
Edit: to explain why I wouldn’t worry which is live vs neutral, look at the two way plug, it looks designed to be plugged in either way round, so the equipment isn’t likely to complain whichever way the new plug gets wired. Still nice to wire the live up to whatever is switched in the turntable though.
The turntable was plugged into a Trio amp for most of its life. It was my grandfather’s, so definitely UK. I’ve had old hifi stuff with these plugs before, but old amps used to have power supplies built in – you just plug your turntable/tuner/whatever directly into the back of the amp.
So would the consensus be that I fit a modern plug with no concern for observing polarity?
Is it a UK market turntable? If so then go ahead. In the late 70s and 80s lots of mid range hifi and better “music centres” had multiway mini-plugs or daisy chaining power to save on taking up your one or two sockets in the living room.
But the first item in that daisy chain might be stepping the voltage down to 110v and it does look very like a US style plug
The turntable was purchased from J G Windows in Newcastle upon Tyne, according to the sticker on the top. It’s not a US unit.
Here’s the transformer:
Here’s the only other part with visible ratings:
As I said, and I used to have an old National Panasonic amp with this feature, some amps in the 70s had the female part of this plug, so you could plug separates in. From a quick look at vintage amps on eBay, it’s pssible that these amp sockets are max 150v. I need to do some more research, but at this point I reckon I’m happy with a simple plug swap. Thanks again for everyone’s assistance.
Those adaptors are fine with modern equipment as manufacturers are generally marketing internationally – so their internal transformers will accept / switch between voltages. But older stuff might not readily accept double the intended voltage.
Can’t quite see from the photo but it looks like the transformer can be wired for 120v or 220v (close enough to 230v used in uk today). Check the “switch over circuit diagram” to see which.