Hi all,

I recently acquired a small PYE portable record player. It is a valve one, 240V not battery.

I haven't got a model number yet, as there are no external markings, other than PYE on the top cover and golden groove on the leather handle.

Photos uploaded.

The Golden Groove is a 1962 model RP-4B.

Pye RP 4B Circuit Diagram

Thank you very much.

I bought it as working but didn't actually test with a record. It's got bit of a speed issue. Will hopefully be an easy fix when I go in to check caps etc.

Speed issue is normally dried out grease, lack of oil, or the rubber drive roller.

Probably a 6BM8 as an amp or similar. Fix the mains plug top: Its got no clamp & looks like the insulation has shrunken. Can't have the inside wires unsheathed.

Document uploaded to Post 3.

The early PVC plugtops never came with a cord grip and relied only on the internals holding the cores steady. These were still vulnerable to people yanking on the cord to pull out the plug, rather than pulling on the plug instead. The later improvement of adding the cord grip went some way to solve this but if the cord is pulled, the outer sheath can still fray. There's tricks to 'restore' such cords but, in this case, given that the cord and plug top is already PVC, replacing the plug top with a Clipsal 439S transparent plug top will not detract from the historical value of this appliance.

Thanks guys.

Will definitely be rectifying the plug situation. Will probably open it up in the next few days and see what I have gotten myself into

I googled extensively and didn't come up with many results for this player. Are they not common?

replacing the plug top with a Clipsal 439S transparent plug top will not detract from the historical value of this appliance.

I think the grey version (439S-GY) is preferable if the existing mains cord is to be retained.

Are they not common?

I haven't seen many of that category of player turn up at HRSA meets over the years. I guess they were considered pretty disposable.

A grey plug top would look better but most places don't stock coloured ones now as they are illegal in most circumstances (moulded ones excepted). So they are obtainable but there might be a wait. Maybe Bunnings has one or two on the shelf.

If it's got a BSR TC8M pickup cartridge (brown body) it may be dead by now, and you'll certainly need a high-output cartridge of that sort to drive the one valve amplifier. If it is a TC8M and it's working, it can only play mono records safely. Don't get me wrong, I actually like the TC8M, it's just hard to find working examples at a reasonable price these days.

It'll play stereo records fine. I've played many of my stereo records on my old AWA Radiola 809GY with it's old Garrard RC72A record changer. I read on a UK forum how "oh no you can't play stereo records on an old mono turntable, it'll damage them and they'll never play on a stereo turntable again"!!! It's an alarmist fallacy. I've just restored a Panasonic stereo turntable and played a stereo record on it I've played countless times on the old mono Garrard and guess what? It played perfect stereo through the Panasonic!

"This is a stereo record and must be played with a stereo compatible cartridge. If in doubt, consult your dealer."

Reason is, the vertical compliance of a mono cartridge is an unknown quantity and so the L-R groove data could be damaged. I've never heard evidence of any such damage though. Probably because vertical compliance in most mono cartridges was acceptable.

A moot point these days, you won't find a working crystal cartridge. You'll need to fit a replacement ceramic. That are readily available. I have done this with good results.

It's just something that needs mentioning in case, against the odds, the machine does have a functioning mono crystal cartridge; the record manufacturers warn against playing stereo LPs with mono carts. The TC8M fails to make the grade on two counts, having practically no vertical compliance, and a broad 1 mil mono stylus instead of the 0.7-0.5 mil standard stereo stylus. The record companies must have been convinced there'd be problems with old carts, or they wouldn't have wasted money issuing mono versions of stereo records. The reason I don't play stereo records on my mono Pye is because I've got plenty of mono records, and stereo LPs I have tried on this machine tend to skip grooves. Probably it's the TC8M's broad stylus.