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Vintage vs New Turntable?

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madmanmandzu

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Parks audio don’t seem to have them at the moment, but they used to sell one ready modified.

I was able to reach out to Shannon and he got back to me pretty quickly. He's officially starting up production again on Monday but had a few ready to ship so I was able to buy one with coax and it's being shipped today. Super nice guy.

I was also able to pick up a Pro-Ject Debut Carbon Evo for about 5% more than the DC costs. I figure it was worth the upgrade.

Phorize, i appreciate your dedication to this thread and all the help and info you've given me. Very much appreciated
 

Phorize

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I was able to reach out to Shannon and he got back to me pretty quickly. He's officially starting up production again on Monday but had a few ready to ship so I was able to buy one with coax and it's being shipped today. Super nice guy.

I was also able to pick up a Pro-Ject Debut Carbon Evo for about 5% more than the DC costs. I figure it was worth the upgrade.

Phorize, i appreciate your dedication to this thread and all the help and info you've given me. Very much appreciated


You'll have fun with tha-you can even grade your records as you play them.
 

anmpr1

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I was also able to pick up a Pro-Ject Debut Carbon Evo for about 5% more than the DC costs. I figure it was worth the upgrade.
I don't know how it is with a lot of mass market consumer audio. I know that with guitars and amps, you can always ask for a 'deal', and places like Sweetwater will often reduce the price. [Obviously there are exceptions on some of the exclusives--artist models and so forth.] It used to be that when you bought a record player your dealer would 'throw in' a cartridge at cost. But those were the days before exotic MC from Japan were popular, and when companies like Shure, Stanton, ADC, Empire were common. When I look at these intro and mid level record players, and what they are asking for them, I sort of shake my head. There's not much to them, really. If you got a deal off list then that's great.
 

dr0ss

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The Denon in your picture is one of the more complex turntables from the era. If I am not mistaken, it uses a quartz lock, tachometer based servo consisting of a magnetic strip under the platter, that is 'read' by a tape head, in order to regulate speed. If this becomes misaligned, or unfunctional, the chances of repair are slim.
We have an 80s Denon that is unrepairable for exactly this reason. Well-made belt-drive turntables from the era are much easier to keep running (and parts are still available for many of the better ones).
 

dennis h

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We have an 80s Denon that is unrepairable for exactly this reason. Well-made belt-drive turntables from the era are much easier to keep running (and parts are still available for many of the better ones).

Which one?
dennis h
 

dr0ss

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I believe it is a DP-11f. (I'd have to go to the storage locker to be sure.)
 

dr0ss

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Thanks, I've been a user of vinylengine for years. I have the service manual, but gave up on repairing this one. The speed on these old Denons is controlled by a magnetic tape head sensing a strip on the inside of the platter. It works well when new, but when that strip becomes degaussed the turntable is unsalvageable. (Perhaps a clever DIYer can yank out the control mechanism and replace it with something modern.)
 

antennaguru

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IMO it's hard to match the quality of vintage turntables with any under $1K new turntables. There are so many nice vintage examples out there on the used market. WRT the maintenance issue, it will be easiest if you buy a purely manual turntable - in other words one with a tonearm that only has a cueing lever at its base and has no automatic features, and an on/off and speed switch for the platter. Any automatic and semi-automatic features involve a lot of alignment issues and often are fouled because of gummed up old grease on linkages, which will get you into a major re-build to remove all of the old gummed grease and replace it with fresh lithium or synthetic grease which won't gum up for a really long time. The simpler manual tonearms have none of those linkages and are considered better anyway. Certainly easier to get going after decades of storage. As far as the turntable itself goes it's really only important that it spins at a solid 33 and 45 rpm. I don't think your collection has 78 rpm records but if so you will be better off with a second turntable for 78 rpm only because the cartridge will need to have a 3 mil stylus to play 78s and that's way too big a stylus to play 33/45 "micro-groove records". Belt drive or quartz-locked direct drive are the easiest to maintain and typically give excellent speed stability.
 

AnalogSteph

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The speed on these old Denons is controlled by a magnetic tape head sensing a strip on the inside of the platter. It works well when new, but when that strip becomes degaussed the turntable is unsalvageable.
So I take it you have inspected the strip with one of them foils that people use for checking ABS wheel speed detection rings of the same principle in the automotive world? Checked / replaced any small electrolytic pertinent to FG pickup around IC1, notably C1, C3 and I guess C5 as well?

Tons of direct drive 'tables use FG servos with magnetic pickup, and if that were a common failure mechanism one would have heard about it. Dead electrolytics in the head amp circuit have very much occurred before, by contrast. Even if the signal should have weakened or the tape head amplifier inside IC1 should have given up the ghost for some reason, it would still be possible to bodge in some external preamp circuitry. (Some measurements on the tape head may be required to determine what the voltage / current noise requirements are.) I think pin 10 of IC1 is a noninverting opamp input, 9 in its inverting counterpart, 8 is its output, 6 may go to the resistor divider for input DC bias between +5V and GND, and 7 may be involved with additional output filtering.
 

kendall

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Does anyone have a source for buying vintage turntables that are clean and refurbished? I know about EBay, Reverb. Very hit or miss. I know Dave at Vinyl Nirvana but I don’t want a Thorens.

I’m really keen to find a clean Sony, Denon, etc direct drive table.
 

dr0ss

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No, of course I didn't. I looked to see if any of the electronic components had leaked smoke, I did some research and found that this table's symptoms were often due to the mag strip dying, and then I put the table in a box and into storage. We have three other turntables, including a Thorens TD-160 that is super easy to keep running well; getting the relatively complicated budget DP-11f working was not a priority...especially as it was my wife's from before we met, so I have no personal emotional attachment to it:). (I do intend to eventually repair the Technics SL-Q200 that was mine from the period, even though it was probably not as good at the time as the Denon; it only needs some new damping oil and a general clean and lube, and was mine.)
 

JP

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Tons of direct drive 'tables use FG servos with magnetic pickup, and if that were a common failure mechanism one would have heard about it.

Only failures I’ve heard of involved removal of the oxide or large magnets.

Does anyone have a source for buying vintage turntables that are clean and refurbished? I know about EBay, Reverb. Very hit or miss. I know Dave at Vinyl Nirvana but I don’t want a Thorens.

I’m really keen to find a clean Sony, Denon, etc direct drive table.
I’ve a couple SP-10MKII that’ll be coming up. Not the utmost best cosmetically but not bad. Mechanically and electronically they’ll be top notch.
 

dualazmak

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Even though I seldom use it these days, my DP-57L is still in perfect shape and function, after twice overhaul by Denon;
WS002440.JPG


Photo from my post here sharing the latest system;
WS002282.JPG


I have already digitized all of my ca. 600 LPs into 192 kHz 24 bit non-compressed AIFF format using DP-57L and Denon MC DL103 by software Audacity... (I also ripped all of my about 2,500 CDs into non-compressed AIFF format in my PC.)
 
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lftlnr

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I've had dozens of them over the years. For performance, the Sony PS-X65 or the Pioneer PL-630 were probably tops, but loaded with electronics under the deck, with lots of irreplaceable components, so forget about reliability. For simple reliability, the AR-XA or the Empire 398, but they're both totally manual, which got tiring pretty quickly. I've had a couple of modern decks, but they are completely lacking in "soul", lol.

If I were to keep just one, for the nostalgic feeling one gets while spinning records, it would be my ELAC Miracord 10. Obviously, it can't touch the performance of digital, but it's fully automatic, has superb German engineering, will last forever (idler wheels are still available), and just looks fantastic.

View attachment 149734
Doloris Ericson, in the day, would make any turntable look better. If not sound better!
 

Godataloss

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VPI HW 19 with a Rega arm of some sort. I've bought 3 over the years all for around $500. Very little to them to go wrong and they are capable of sound rivaling kilobuck tables if setup correctly.
 
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