Nude Turntable Project

Just picked up my repaired TT-101 yesterday in time for the new granite cradle.
After 3 months without it....it's like a heroin hit...💉

Lew,
I have learnt to respect the Victor engineers when it comes to all things analogue.
From their DD turntables to their tonearms to their cartridges to their pigskin mats....every product appears to have the ineffable quality of analogue knowledge and ingenuity.
I think Dover is correct in his assessment of the plinth construction they used for their quality drives.
I have just spent the afternoon at my son's place listening to the QL-A7 (now with the Empire 1000ZE/X).
There appears to be little masking or colouration to the sound compared with a 'nude' TT-81.
I might add that the turntable/plinth combination is heavy...and I mean boat-anchor heavy.
This seems to give to the sound an authority and low-frequency heft that eludes many other decks.

My advice (and my Tech's advice) to you is......get a good tech to burn out ALL the old solder joints in the TT-101 circuits and carefully re-do them.
If they have already been done.......do it again to those joints on the Power Board Circuit under all the control buttons.
An intermittent fault (or one that starts as such) is indicative of a crack or discontinuity in a solder joint.

I received the granite cradle and have epoxy'd the three Helicoil inserts into the drilled bottom holes to take the M8 stainless steel levelling spikes.
Looks quite nice..😎
Bit of a squeeze inside....
But is just as I imagined it...😏
Now for the listening tests.....

Very nice Henry

Very nice indeed. Lacquered soapstone would be very nice too IMO.