Vintage Japanese DD Consult and Suggestions Please

You can get a rebuilt DP80 off of yahoo auction japan through a service like buyee or others, just be aware that shipping costs are high.

a dk-110 or 300 can also be found there.

a dp75 motor unit could be an option, some say there is no sonic difference between the two. (I have never heard a 75) but you can get a 110 volt version. not so with the 80.

I have in various rooms, a Kenwood KD990, a Denon DP60L, a Denon DP47F, a Denon DP59L, a Denon 55K, and a JVC QL-Y7. Keep in mind, most all of this is original JVC technology with various bells and whistles. I also have a half a dozen various others "on ice." First, you have to decide if you want autolift. Then if you want play with various arms--such as the 55K lets you do (or the 80 you are considering) (I have a Unitrac on my 55K, perfect match I think) and if you want a lot of cartridge swapping. And what sort of cartridges. I like lightweight cartridges on most of the Denons. Such as Denon 303, or some MMs, or Grados. But, the 59 and 60 have swappable S-arms to let you use heavier, more modern cartridges. The JVC and Kenwood have removable headshells, as do some of the Denons. The Kenwood has a heavier effective mass arm allowing for some heavier modern cartridges. The Kenwood cuing, arm motion, and build are all very nice. I put it against an expensive VPI for 6 months and sold the VPI (the only belt table I've kept, among many, is the Merrill Superpolytable and a DIY one, both with smaller footprints). The 60, while not quite the arm of the 59, is a nice, steady performer. Footprint matters to me. The 47 and the 60 can get in tighter spaces. As for the JVC, I have a Benz Micro cartridge on it and it has played maybe 15 hours a week  for two years flawlessly, so if you get a good one I assume it will run well for a long time. Some of my many Denons I bought at bargain prices and those needed some form of minor tweaking. Intermittent buttons, or tonearm stickiness, or VTA adjustment/shimming, mis-calibrated VTF, all easily done in less than fifteen minutes. The others have been perfect for years.

Too bad Chakster is no longer on Audiogon as he was a wealth of information on older direct drive turntables and cartridges. You may want to look through his older posts, a wealth of information there.

Chakster had a wealth of opinions that would not let facts stand in their way. But I miss him too and hope he’s ok.

I find this Micro Seiki a good combo of QLDD, separate power supply if you value that, and it has the Long Version of their 505L Arm. Check how the dust cover is wider than the plinth, only a small part rests on two fittings on the sides up front, must have been some testing involved to choose that.

Micro Seiki QLDD Turntable, 3 speeds, outboard controller

I wondered what the holes in the side were for, I found this:

"In 1976, a Hi-End model of the DD100 class appeared in retail. The device had a massive and heavy table, a heavy disk. The DD100 weighed 26 kilograms. A new generation tonearm - MA505 was installed. It was possible to install two more tonearms, including 10 and 12 This was done using bases that were attached to the sidewalls of the case. Five different A-series bases were developed."

I know OP is not interested in more than one arm, just fun facts. I like my arms under the dust cover, not outside as they would be. In any case, the 505 arm has both a removable headshell and the arm tube fitting is adjustable for azimuth, excellent thinking, faster and easier to get right than an adjustable headshell with allen head set screw.