He slapped records against the side of the turntable, creating an earthquakey rumble.
After a million revolutions of the turntable, fans may trade in mysteries for dull meanings.
It will sing along with music," said Harry Weisfeld, the owner of the turntable maker VPI, based in Cliffwood, N.J.
Three Buildings Department inspectors did a visual inspection of the turntable and signed off on it, he said.
As a result, a "fringe interference" pattern (alternate bands of light and dark) was detected that depended on the precise rate of rotation of the turntable.
Having youthful ears and endless stamina are such important ingredients of success that even today's acknowledged masters of the turntable anticipate their own obsolescence.
Tibor Varganyi, whose formal education ended in the ninth grade in Hungary, struggled how to measure the distance between the roughly 30 bolt holes around a piece of the turntable assembly.
In the early days of the turntable, one of its biggest problems was an effect called rumble: vibrations from the motor and the turntable that were picked up by the needle.
Questions about the history and condition of the turntable may turn the focus of the investigation to its owner, New York Crane, which was also the company that owned the crane that collapsed on March 15 on East 51st Street.
The city also beefed up its inspections of cranes, but it was not clear if those increased inspections included close monitoring of the turntable or the welded area that is now under scrutiny in Friday's accident.
One of the owners said that very little of the original garage was found: just parts of the turntable and the tank in the basement, completely encased in concrete, still full of gasoline.
