Turntables, Tonearms: Rare Finds

Bill, you and Lew and I and many others all agree, dust covers OFF during play. My pet peeve is not having a dust cover to protect it when off.

Selling a TT, especially an expensive TT without a dust cover makes no sense to me. I think it is irresponsible of the makers.

Located and bought a still in original box technics belt drive with p-mount tonearm. All it needed was a new belt. It was brand spanking new still n the plastic wrap. I located the original technics p-mount cartridge on ebay. Not that I needed yet another turntable, but this thing is cool with the no fuss p-mount, the red strobe, and slider tonearm lift and auto lift/return at end of record. 

E, your system, based on the dozens of photos you have published here, sits under the sill of a very large bay window and is surrounded by chotchkies. It has been my observation (unscientific) that windows cause dust, either by their effect on air flow (cooling air that contacts the window which then falls carrying dust particles with it) or some other arcane reason.  And bay windows would cause the circulation of more dust than would a more typical smaller size window.  And chotchkies accumulate dust. So I don’t wonder that you have dust.  But I don’t have a noticeable problem. My living room system is well away from windows, and my second system in our finished basement is really dust free even moreso.  The only concession to dust protection that I make is to cover my platter(s) with lucite discs the size of an LP that protect the platter only, when the tt is not in use. My tonearms sit entirely outside any dust cover.  You’re going to clean your stylus tip anyway, right? I am glad we all three agree not to use a dust cover during play. Some do.

@lewm 

we have forced air for heat and ac, our house is dustier than most everywhere. Even in cleaner setups, like my prior setups with radiators (gate house built in 1886) the arms pivots, fine surfaces, .... anything carefully made deserves protection IMO. Not to mention cat hair.

Dust is something that must be managed that is for sure.  When Ben & Jerry, my much missed Maine Coon cats were still amongst the living, there is no question dust was more of an issue for me than now.  Our NH house, built in 1954, is also much dustier than our FL house.  I purchased a very large air purifier for NH, which will get installed when we go back up next month.  Elliott is correct, though, I should be more attentive about my dust covers.  I'll try to do better.  BTW, before I forget, we will be stopping at VPI and VAS on our way North and I'll post a note here on the date in case anyone wants to meet there.  It will be first week of May if all goes well.