Dear Hiho, I stand corrected. I am in fact aware of the business, Top Class Audio. But still…
The big issue with these turntables is the integrated circuits that were used here and there. ICs come and go over time, and once they're gone from products, they are no longer made. There is no imperative for an electronics company to keep updating the same part over time. With discrete transistors, we are much better off, because such devices have basic functions that are always needed. Thus the bad transistors used in Denon turntables (known to be noisy and prone to failure) were readily replaced by Bill Thalmann in my DP80 with modern, quieter, and much more reliable equivalents. Other than the ICs, every other part in any of these tables can be replaced, therefore. This is why I harp on replacing 30-year-old electrolytic capacitors. One bad capacitor can wipe out an irreplaceable IC. However, I have had good luck finding the single IC used in the DP80 and the clock IC used in the TT101, from Hong Kong sources found on Alibaba. So it is not a totally hopeless problem, if it should arise. (TT101 uses several more ICs, however, and I don't know whether those can be found or not.)
The big issue with these turntables is the integrated circuits that were used here and there. ICs come and go over time, and once they're gone from products, they are no longer made. There is no imperative for an electronics company to keep updating the same part over time. With discrete transistors, we are much better off, because such devices have basic functions that are always needed. Thus the bad transistors used in Denon turntables (known to be noisy and prone to failure) were readily replaced by Bill Thalmann in my DP80 with modern, quieter, and much more reliable equivalents. Other than the ICs, every other part in any of these tables can be replaced, therefore. This is why I harp on replacing 30-year-old electrolytic capacitors. One bad capacitor can wipe out an irreplaceable IC. However, I have had good luck finding the single IC used in the DP80 and the clock IC used in the TT101, from Hong Kong sources found on Alibaba. So it is not a totally hopeless problem, if it should arise. (TT101 uses several more ICs, however, and I don't know whether those can be found or not.)