I have another VZ-3000 in for repair, looks like this one has had a repair attempt sometime in the past as most of the screws holding the vertical turntable in place were either loose or not even in the threads. The turntable belt looked like it had been replaced but the door / tone arm drive belt had not, and it looked pretty bad. This wasn’t why it was brought in though, the B side playback on the turntable was a very low level and muffled. This is pretty easy to diagnose, there’s a relay that switches the audio path from side A and B cartridges to the output stages, getting a new one is a challenge…I eventually found a source in Japan, and stripping the Hi-Fi down to a point where the relay can be replaced is another challenge. It’s a work in progress at the moment, the relay has been replaced, I’m waiting for the door belt to arrive and then I can get on with servicing the rest of it!
More news as it progresses!
Well once the belt had arrived and been fitted I was able to see what kind of a state everything else was in. The door mech didn’t operate very smoothly so all the the old grease was removed and new applied. On trying an LP I found both sides played with equal volume and actually sounded superb. Now on to the tape deck, all the belts were ok but the playback was very muffled, I cleaned, polished and aligned the record / playback head which rectified that, all the controls and switches worked without any scratchiness, unusual for something of it’s age, and the tuner also worked well. I did find that the speaker output sockets were a bit intermittent, with the right channel disappearing altogether if the speaker plug was moved in it’s socket, I had to strip and clean them, finding them to be quite tarnished, all was well once they were reassembled.
All in all one of the better VZ’s I’ve had in, no drama with this one, apart from the usual hassle of getting it apart and back together again!