EMT 950

The turntable EMT 950 was sometimes and is still called the flagship amongst the EMT turntable fleet. It was the first direct driven unit. As a basically new development beneath idler and belt driven turntables the development engineers equipped the unit with all the needed features which were state of the art. Compared with the EMT 930, which was a more puristic unit with more mechanics and nearly no electronics, the 950 was nearly crammed with electronis. Everything was controllable by means of pushbuttons: Start/Stop, lift, the speeds, reverse cueing, mono/stereo, cartridge illumination and local/remote. Switching between 33rpm and 45rpm depends on the diameter in the hole of the record. The tone arm is raised and lowered by means of a motor driven lift with defined speed for maximum protection of the records and diamond.

The unit was offered in two versions: The narrow version with the pushbutton fields in front of the turntable and the wide version with the pushbutton fields at the left hand side of the turntable and additional space for a cue speaker and other options.

Servicefriendlyness was important and the entire electronic was spread over several printed circuit boards. The concept of the equalizer board and the line driver board had been so well-engineerd, that it was adopted without any changes for the EMT 948 and later on with a different mechanic layout also for the EMT 938. The most important potentiometers can be found at the front side of the boards.

The signal for direction and speed of the motor was generated by an optical tachomeric disc. Two powerful driver boards supply the motor with enough power to ensure the quick start which was well known from EMT on the one hand and on the other hand to equalize the load of a brush or just the pick-up and to offer best w&f parameters. When transporting an EMT 950 it should be quite sure, that the motor as well as the chassis are locked to avoid damages of the expensive tachometric disc.

Such a terrific unit caused desirousness in the in the Hi-End-scene. So one unit was ordered for evaluation by a HiFi magazin. But the result was very bad. The „professionals“ judged a very poor sound: Too much treble and too less bass. The reason: They had connected only one pin of the balanced output which must lead to a wrong sound. This ensures EMT in keeping a certain distance to the HiFi-world. Good to know that this has changed in our days.

When the EMT 950 is well aligned and the tacho disc is not damaged you will measure the same data that had been guaranteed decades before. – The EMT 950 is really an eyecandy and the data of the audio chain cannot be called a highlight in our days, but equipped with the F2 boards (no longer under production) the sound could be improved a lot. Last but not least one can use the J-series cartridges thus meaning the audio quality compares very well with modern units.

As the unit is really complex, also the developers had a large area to experience unexpected effects. One of these were the inputs which need to be modified against any kind of interference to avoid not planned switching. Another topic were the contatcs of the printed circuit boards which had a simple tin surface in the beginning, then had been treated wih contact oil and as last solution got a gold surface.

Pushbutton illumination EMT 950

You may recognize at EMT 950 that some symbols in the pushbuttons become dark due to the warmness of the bulb in the pushbutton. Until now the only solution was the replacement of the symbol in the pushbutton.
Now there is a better solution available: Replace the bulbs by LED’s.
Two versions are available. One with a plug-in LED and a second solution with soldering the LED. Both versions have advantages and disadvantages:

Version 1: Plug-in LED
Disadvantages: The colour is a cold white (blueish) and differs from the warm colour temperature of the bulb. Under some circumstances resistors have to be soldered in parallel to the already existing. The sockets for the bulb’s/LED’s have silver plated contacts as well as their counterparts. The surfaces of these contacts may still oxydate.
Advantages: Easy mounting. Just unscrew the pushbutton fields, plug off the old bulb, insert the LED and mount the pushbutton fields again.

Version 2: LED to be soldered
Disadvantage: If you are not able to solder yourself you need to send the pushbutton fields or find somebody for soldering.
Advantages: The colour temperatures of the bulb and of the warm white LED’s can not be differentiated. After the LED’s have been soldered not contact problems will occur any longer.

Both versions are of course also applicable for EMT EMT 938 and EMT 948.

If you are interested please contact me.