In article ,
wrote:
Hello Scott (and Ralph)

A soundscriber just sold on ebay (sunday 9th decemeber) for 103.28, a
little more than I wanted to pay. I had a nicer and newer version
back in the mid seventies that I regretfully lost in a move. It
wasn't a bad machine. I'm looking for a simple lathe if anyone knows
of one.

Sadly, prices on anything you'd even want to look at have gone sky high.
Collectors bid the things up to crazy prices, even junk home machines with
under-platter feedscrews.

You can buy the things in pieces... most of the old broadcast turntables
had cutting lathe options available for them. So you buy an old RCA
table, then you buy the RCA leadscrew assembly, then you buy a Presto
cutting head (and I would not recommend anything worse than a Presto cutter,
which is pretty bad to begin with). Add to this any power amp with a
homebrew reverse-RIAA filter and you're in the lo-fi cutting business.

Problem is that the audiophile market knows about those old broadcast
turntables and they will pay way more for them than they are worth,
considering they all have way too much vertical rumble for stereo anyway.

You can try asking on rec.antiques.radio+phono which is where the
collector guys hang out.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."