My new turntable

[Daniel Quinn]

bollocks , what a let down .

[MarkWoody]

Bugger! Fingers crossed it's only superficial.

[Neilardo]

Nope it's fucked.
I don't like to denigrate people I don't know but the foolish thing that has been done here is the platter and tonearm counter-weight have been left in situ whilst in transit . The platter has become dislodged and has been rattling around inside the lid. So the lid is smashed, the rear part of the tonearm is bent and the cartridge has taken a bang and the stylus is wrecked . None of the automatic tone-arm functions work. The platter does go around. Lots of photos taken, difficult to show the tone arm damage tho due to small margin and camera parallax problem.
I'll leave it there for now cos the dog needs a walk and then there's kids to collect and I'm very very pissed off.

[Daniel Quinn]

That is a shame , perhaps Nadia can give lessons in packing to the general public . The docs parcels are indestructible .

Although by the sounds of it, whoever packed that would probably be incapable of following instructions .

[_D_S_J_R_]

What a crying shame - hope there's some financial comeback.

Lesson I learned when I used to collect chiming clocks (I've now got to get rid of them!) - I'd sent a message with payment asking for careful packing. Having said that, a Garrard chiming clock I spent around £200 having serviced/restored was very carefully packed up, double boxed and returned. Didn't stop the glass being smashed!

[jammy395]

Sorry to hear that Neil.
I hate it when that happens - Touch wood, its been a long time since ive had smashed goods...!!!

[MarkWoody]

That's terrible. Presume it's within UK & hopefully you can claim, but even so!
Bet the dog can tell how pissed off you are!

[Neilardo]

So, what to do, what to do.........
I've just spoken to the seller, he's very apologetic and has offered me an (as yet unspecified) amount of money to make reparations. New lid can be got for £45 or so, the stylus was probably a gonner anyway, i wasn't going to pay £75+ to have it re-tipped. But the tone-arm, if that's buggered then the rest ain't worth shit anyway.
The seller tells me that all the auto-functions were working before posting (the auto-cue was getting a little juddery), but they're not working now. Again I could live without auto-functions, but it may well be indicative of damage to the arm. The damage to the arm looks, to the untrained eye (mine), to be minimal. The rear section of the arm (behind the attachment point) appears to be bent down very slightly, and i mean only slightly 2 or 3 mm up and it would be straight. And it doesn't appear to be mis-aligned laterally The platter starts and stops smoothly, and the X-tal lock (strobe) appears to be fully functional.
My head tells me to send it back and claim a full refund. My head also tells me that if the courier investigates then they probably won't pay-out because the damage was caused by the platter being left in situ during transit.
My heart wants it to be repairable. You really don't see these very often and I felt that the price I paid was fair (for a working t/t) - £160.
Any one care to speculate on the probable condition of the tonearm?
All opinions welcome while I figure out what to do.

[Neilardo]

That's terrible. Presume it's within UK & hopefully you can claim, but even so!
Bet the dog can tell how pissed off you are!

Dogs are just great. Mines nearly 14, he's nearly blind he's totally deaf. His kidneys, prostate and joints are all shot. He still potters about, gets a treat and enjoys a good ear-rub.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Sounds like the old people retirement home I would like to end up in in 30 years

Though I prefer my back scratched than my ears rubbed.