Lube for turntable - What do you prefer?

Being a mechanical engineer, I can tell you that it is fairly straigh forward to pull out a machine design text and look for lubrication weight formulas. It's all based on hydrostatic forces created by the oil between two rotation cylindrical surfaces.

The tough part is determining the clearance between the two bearing surfaces. I seriously doubt you find such informoation in the turntable manual.

Long story short, its just like Dougdeacon said- large clearances need grease (often called bushings) and small clearances need oil (often called journal bearings).

On my rega planar 3 I replaced the stock (80w hypoid gear oil) with 140w Mobil synthetic gear oil (SHC 634) and the sound improved very noticeably.

I think Lucas has the best answer, but it is worth experimenting with viscosity, as a more viscous oil can better damp the bearing, and reduce rocking.

I have an oracle alexandria with a worn upper bearing. Not sure what oracle reccomends, but they told me to run something heavier. I am running the silicone type stuff that is meant for the well tempered tables with great success, the sound quality was very dramatically improved. It is VERY thick and a pain to clean up. It got rid of almost all of the sibilance I was experiencing.

If you have an oracle, the upper bushing/bearing is likely worn.

Just thought I would chime in with some experience I had last week.

Hi Dewald,

Doug's and Raul's answers are the most comprehensive.

Proper lubrication (e.g. protecting the bearing) is the starting point.

From there, you need to try various lubes to determine what sounds the best. By changing viscosities, you are tuning (or de-tuning) a resonant system which is comprised of all of the rotating parts in your turntable:

- Motor and its torque
- Controller circuit - how quickly it responds to the changing environment.
- Drive interface and its compliance (e.g. belt / material, idler wheel / material, direct-drive)
- Platter mass
- Bearing tolerance

Changing any one of these will affect what you hear (especially as far as timing is concerned), and not necessarily for the better.

Let your ears tell you what's right, and realize that if you make a system change elsewhere, that you may well need to return to this evaluation.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier

Thom - thank you for the feedback.

I think I have found the lube for my machine - the sound is open & relaxed with lots of "air" in between. Rumble has gone down to virtually zero and it was a change for the better.

You see - I use radical VESCONITE to make the main-bearing sleeves from. This is a super low-friction plasic with excellent wear-resistance. It doesn't have that nasty ring/ping that copper have... I like it very much.

DV