Acoustic Research XA
While searching all corners of the earth for speakers, it was inevitable that other AR products will also move across my screen, and few larger than the legendary XA turntable. So one local search coughed up a very old ad for an XA somewhere in the Johannesburg area, 2000 km away. The seller was asking only $40, but I sent numerous emails without receiving any response, so I could only presume that it has been sold. Hardly a month had passed when the same item surprisingly popped up in a different set of classifieds, now going for $20, and this time the seller, Andre, responded after my 4th desperate request – he was unwilling to ship the turntable for risk of damage and would only entertain personal collection. Having seen pictures of what inadequate packaging or rough handling could do to a vintage turntable, I could understand his unwillingness to subject a piece of art to a known unsophisticated practice. Fortunately I had colleagues from work flying to Johannesburg on a regular basis, so we agreed that I pay and then have someone collect it from him when convenient. Eventually things didn’t quite work out like I wanted it to with trips being postponed or cancelled, so I had to employ a shuttle service for $45 to move the XA from one end of Johannesburg to the other to get it closer to the airport. This was in June 2009.
The turntable came complete except for tone arm counterweight, and this had me in a state of indecision. One school of thought maintains that completely replacing the tone arm is the kind of upgrade which puts the XA up there with anything else currently available. To put this claim in perspective we have to keep in mind that this was the arch original model for the English phrase “basic turntable”; it played vinyl and nothing else – no lifting arms, no anti-skating, or auto shutoff. With counterweight missing, it made sense to replace the tone arm, but looking at prices for some of the suggested arms made me break a cold sweat. Two popular early replacements were the Grace 707 and the Mayware Formula 4, while more modern favorites are the Rega 250 and 300, Linn Basik LV-X and Origin Live. The Grace was a legendary tone arm from Japan, no longer in production and very much sought after, easily fetching in excess of $200 as a used item. In their November 1988 issue “LA Audiofile” ran a very comprehensive diy article on transforming the XA into a state-of-the-art machine, and in that same vein, the very respectable “Stereophile” did the Mayware modification to achieve the same results.
Yet, a few years earlier, in 1984, “Audio Basics”, while sorting out a heavily modified Merrill (arguably the world’s foremost rebuilder of AR turntables) fitted with the Grace 707, reported that this was “...a nice try, but a properly set up original AR arm is so much better than the Grace...”, because lacking “...the superior authority of the original AR arm, the Grace arm is not rigid enough for optimum results”. This 2nd school of thought maintains to this day that the AR tone arm is unfairly judged by rebuilders, probably because of its very ordinary looks, and that it works as well as any alternative. The general belief was that apart from the required servicing of the suspension and belt replacement, the only significantly measurable change resulted from replacing the cartridge with something better. This is supported by a surface tracking shootout between a 1968 XA, fitted with an Ortofon OM30 cartridge on the standard XA arm, and a 1995 Oracle fitted with three of the top cartridges of the 80’s and 90’s. This test was done using the Shure "Audio Obstacle Course" test record, and the AR out-tracked the modern combinations. So, if a turntable’s main function was to play vinyl records with the minimum number of errors possible, I guess the XA’s tone arm, although closer in resemblance to a medieval door latch, incorporated some very clever engineering from the 60’s. I decided to go with the stock setup, seeing that there were more than enough directives from the proponents of the keep-it-standard religion on how to exactly tune the original arm to vinyl perfection.
My search for a replacement for the missing counterweight was unsuccessful, and initially I fared only slightly better with auctions for complete arms which included the counterweight. The first two auctions I encountered were running between $50 and $60, and I was outbid on both, but fortunately the third one went very well, and I was able to clinch the deal on $31. This unit came out of Ohio in the US, and shipping cost clocked in at $15. In time this seemingly over the top purchase proved a blessing in disguise, because once I started restoration work, I was unable to fully disassemble the tonearm. The TA and initial XA's came out with some kind of damping device which had to be very finely tuned - when not, which was very often, it led to serious tracking problems. Disabling this feature forms a major part of the standard tone arm's upgrade, and AR soon enough replaced this with a simpler design. The tonearm that came with my table was of the original design, and the auction arm was the later and foolproof version, so when I was unable to loosen the minute screws holding the cylindrical pivot to the shaft, it was a easy decision to replace the complete old arm with the upgrade.
During transit the wiring of the tonearm got just about completely severed because the suspension was not clamped down, so there was another purchase to be made. Care must be taken here to obtain proper internal tonearm wiring, because if too heavy a gauge is used, serious tracking issues will spoil your vinyl experience. I got mine as a five wire colour coded set for $18 plus $3 for shipping, courtesy of John's Wireshop in the US. On receiving the rewiring kit I had my doubts about it's suitability, because the wires both looked thicker and felt stiffer than the old ones they were replacing, despite being advertised as the same gauge as something like Cardas. Initially they appeared to work okay, but the jury is still out. Carefully noting which colors should go where is fairly important to make the sounds come out right, but I must confess that I became slightly impatient and lost my way in marking the sequence at the 4 pins coming out the back of the cartridge shell. I failed to notice that the wiring in the head shell was a different color scheme than that of the wiring inside the tonearm, but the gods were smiling on me, and somehow I soldered everything in the correct order and each channel fired up where it should.
My cartridge of choice was the Ortofon OM5E, another analogue legend and firm favorite for entry level belt drives. The XA originally came out with the Shure M91ED, but some people felt that the later Ortofon was better suited at sustained good tracking when dealing with a not properly tuned AR tone arm (vertical and horizontal bearing friction plus an exposed and looping cable coming out the rear of the tone arm). I sourced both cartridge and needle from Wenning & Engels in Germany for $33, shipping included, in total about $10 cheaper than what I would have paid in South Africa.
Overall the turntable was in a very good shape. The cover, prone to cracked sides, was in one piece, and it fortunately had no deep scratches. The expected myriad of hairline marks I visually reduced to as close a mirror image possible with normal car polish and a lot of buffing. I believe a better finish is possible with a proper plastic polish and even more elbow action, but for the time being it was looking pretty close to new. The plinth was in a really exceptional condition, no marks whatsoever except for a small nick at the one back corner. A few layers of Burmese oil quickly brought out the life in the wood, which of course was the original Acoustic Research standard of solid American Walnut. The recommended factory treatment is a 7-step course with boiled linseed oil, but I was in too much of a hurry to see the first glimpses of restored Walnut the first time round, so this finishing will have to wait for a later stage.
The one horrible looking piece was the top plate - I'm not too sure what paint finish AR used here, but when I took ownership it resembled a thick layer of cooked, green goo. I scraped the worst off with a knife, removed the rest with paint remover, and then cleaned and prepped the metal for a coat of hammered red. I was fairly excited about this finish, but wanting a really rich and dark burgundy, I could only source a very plain and flat fire hydrant red. I applied this colour, but I'm not too happy with, so I may still try and darken the red, or simply switch to plain black.
The insides showed the first signs of wear and tear - a cracked pc board, which I re-inforced with a metal strip, and the cracks in the circuit I bypassed with pieces of wire soldered in to recover the connection. I removed the sponge shock absorbers in the springs, seeing that they were primarily used on bouncy wooden floors (I live with a solid tile floor), cleaned all bearings and filled up bearing wells with 100% silicone. The belt still looked okay, and apparently turned the platter without any signs of impending failure or popping off, but seeing that everyone recommends replacement as a refurbishing standard, I ordered two belts anyway from Pleasebyme in Homosassa, Florida - $5 per belt and $3 for shipping to South Africa. In general I followed a combination of two or three XA servicing guides which I sourced from the Internet, and in my limited experience I can only conclude that everything worked out very well. 
Finally, despite the unit's good cosmetic condition it was missing it's logo plates, so once again Vintage-AR had to come to the rescue with their top class replicas. Slightly smaller than the speaker logos, these were of the exact same design and quality, and with double-sided tape at the back to make for easy fitment. I attached one to the centre of the cover, and another in its proper position on the left front side of the plinth. The dustcover was finally put on hinges, seeing that I wanted everything out of dust range at all time, also when playing a record.
I couldn't wait to get the XA started and didn't even bother to set up the tonearm correctly. Playing that first record turned into a very emotional experience because it was an old German big band label handed down by my late father, so it brought back way too many memories. That, and the fact that I managed to bring this magnificent piece of audio equipment back to life was one hell of a high in the progress of my project. I still had to set up the tonearm, and the record had forty three years of grime in the grooves, but within that first minute of listening, the detail and clarity confirmed that it was going to be extremely difficult to take a stand in the digital vs vinyl debate.After properly adjusting both the tonearm weight and the pivot tension, I started washing my LP's, following the cleaning method of Bill Cartmel from Billstuff. This brought about a very distinct improvement in sound, mainly by removing most if not all of the dirt on the surface, and as a 100% manual operation, it is a very successful substitute for expensive record washer/vacuums. And the sound? Without waxing lyrical, I'll conclude by saying that I consider myself fortunate for having strayed off course so that I could rediscover the world of vinyl. It's simply a completely "new" world of sound.