Vintage DD turntables. Are we living dangerously?

Note: "Made in Western Germany".  So that step-down transformer is at least 25 years old.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.  But this is to say that I don't think it's fair to dismiss ANYTHING made in China as "crap".  I've got two 117V to 100V step-downs made in China, both from the same source and of the same type, that are nicely made and have held up for more than 5 years each.  They don't vibrate or heat up during constant use.  The best bet is to make sure the step-down or -up is over-rated for the power demand.  As long as that's the case, you should be oK.

Ironically, there was once a time in the post-WW2 USA when Japanese-made products were looked down upon in much the same way as many of us now view Chinese manufacturing. 

Just for semantic reasons, I should have written "EVERYTHING", instead of "ANYTHING", in my comment above.  Of course, any one thing made in China could be "crap", but not everything is.

Just procured a batch of the other unobtanium IC for the Victor TT101- IC813 the Toshiba TC5001 - had to buy ten of them so anyone should need one in the future I have a stash :-)

Good Listening


Peter 

Peter, I thought I noticed that not one but several other ICs appeared to be used in the TT101. However, all seemed to be of the same type, based on cursory examination.  Is this the one you've now got?  How many would hypothetically be needed to re-do an entire TT101 circuit, assuming that one would need several of one kind?  Thanks.

chakster:

I use acupwr for my japanesse vintage gear: http://acupwr.com/pages/voltage-transformers-converters

Made in the usa, but likely just as good as Lewm's chinese step downs. :). It doesn't vibrate and doesn't heat up and neither does the gear connected to it. Having said that, I just bought a japanese made step down, partly because it is Japanese but primarily because I needed more outlets. I'm curious to see whether there are sonic diferences btw the two.