Philips Disc Jockey Major AG2121

I was watching the television set the other evening, of course in black + white, 405 lines, whilst smoking my pipe and sipping on a glass of Mackeson Stout, there was a program “The Repair Shop”.  One of the presenters was challenged with restoring one these little record players.  Ah, I thought, I have one of these lying around somewhere, let’s have a look for it and see if it can be sorted.

Had not touched this since it was given to me about 40 years ago. The first thing to check, is the pickup. This is a crystal cartridge with 2 slyli built into one unit. You select 45 and 78 RPM by rotating the head shell. Normally after 65 years of service, they fall to bits, but luckily, this one was all intact. Also, the rubber idler wheel that drives the turntable was in good order.

With the chassis out, all the black tar covered capacitors had to be replaced. These unusually were not too electrically leaky, but had lost their capacity value. All resistors were within tolerance. The set had 3 valves. An EZ41 rectifier and an EBC41 as a pre amp. The EBC41 was normally used in detector stages in radios, using it’s double diode aspect. Both of these valves are B8A rimlock types whilst the output stage us an EL84 B9A. I guess looking at this valve lineup, the player must date to around mid ‘50s. B8A valves date around ’48-’49, whilst the EL84 was born around ’53. The HT smoothing block was in good shape, so it was let as was.

Clean up the mechanics and lubricate where required, power up. Really pleased with it’s performance. Plenty of punch, helped along with plenty of gain in the pre amp, along with negative feedback. The lid houses the loudspeaker and can be detached to point it where you want to. Always make sure when you pack it away, select the speed lever to the N, Neutral, position. You don’t want to leave it under tension between motor and turntable rim, as it will end up with a flat spot, which would not do would it??