If it is the bearings you can tell by opening the door and see if you can lift your wash drum up and down. if so the bearings have gone. If you hubby is technical he could replace the bearings himself but he would need a special tool called a bearing puller which pulls bearings apart. But the last couple of my washingmachines i have just found it easyer to just replace the whole drum.
ultima 1200
May 2005
Yes the noise increases with the spin but it also sounds as is something is loose in the drum and banging around. The machine is not jumping around.
Lesley
April 2005
does the noise increase as the spin increases? is the machine jumping around? one will point to bearing failure the other to suspention problems