|
I know I've mentioned this somewhere before; but, I have a '48 Decca children's 78 rpm record player that has one side of the AC line connected directly to the chassis. The ground shield of the cartridge cable, which (of course) runs through the metal tonearm, is natuarlly connected to the chassis; thus, making the metal tonearm "hot". And, of course, the volume control shaft is hot. The only thing protecting the user is the knob. All it would take would be for the AC plug to be inserted the wrong way in the socket and for someone to have one hand on the metal tonearm and another body part to be in contact with a ground point and that would be all she wrote.
Something like this would never pass UL inspection today; and, I don't know how it passed back then, either. Especially since this item was marketed to children. To make it safer, I installed a line isolation transformer inside the case.
|