Thanks everyone. The veneer definitely looks better from afar. I used to thin material and too much glue. I learned my lessons and look forward to the next project. I'm currently working on a dustcover for it.
I haven't had the time to really sit down and listen to it except for random times. I listened to Al Dimeola's album "Electric Rendezvous" the other night and was blow away with how it sounded. Incredible. The platter is very quiet and I do not hear any type of hum or noise in-between tracks. It is a very solid turntable with a strong motor. I think the platter weighs around 11 pounds and there is no hesitation during start-up. The suspension legs seem a little flaky to me as they don't seem to do much but I did notice a slight adjustment does move them. I placed a bubble level on all corners and on the platter and it's perfectly level. Having a external power supply is new to me so I can't really comment on it.
The tonearm. This has been a bitch to setup. It needed completely broken down, cleaned and wires soldered, greased and aligned. I'm happy to say that all that has been done and now it works perfectly. It is not without it's quirks. When you set the needle down on the record you really need to make sure that the arm is almost perfectly 90 degrees to the spindle. If it is to far back, the arm will never catch up to where it hits a sensor and tells the main motor to pull the arm closer to the spindle. It will start to skip if this occurs. If it is to far forward, the second sensor could trip and it will think the record is over and will left the arm all together. It's actually pretty ingenious on how it works. It's a combination of a 4 wheeled cart that is suspended upside down in a track and when the arm is engaged, it hooks onto a chain that is attached to the main drive motor. Here's a good read on linear tonearms and how this one works.
http://www.soundfountain.com/amb/ttrabco.htmlI hope to bring it into the shop one Saturday to give it a spin. I'd be interested to hear what you guys have to say.
