Vintage DD turntables. Are we living dangerously?


I have just acquired a 32 year old JVC/Victor TT-101 DD turntable after having its lesser brother, the TT-81 for the last year.
TT-101
This is one of the great DD designs made at a time when the giant Japanese electronics companies like Technics, Denon, JVC/Victor and Pioneer could pour millions of dollars into 'flagship' models to 'enhance' their lower range models which often sold in the millions.
Because of their complexity however.......if they malfunction.....parts are 'unobtanium'....and they often cannot be repaired.
halcro
Ahh Lewm......the Master of illogical analogies.
Firstly we have the "rowboat in the floating sea" analogy whereby the stable platform of your shelf or rack is likened to the unruly fluid of the sea and the vibrations which uniformly affect the rigid shelf are compared to the multifarious currents and winds acting on a thermal fluid in constant motion.
In this ludicrous juxtaposition.....he then places two separate boats instead of one contiguous raft...
But now Lewm surpasses himself....the results of a person jumping off a roof are well known to be less than happy whereas the results of a person using outboard armpods are so far universally 'happy'. So how goes the analogy....❓

But I also can be somewhat amused with "thought experiments"
The Kenwood L-07D
http://i.imgur.com/VvgdWQi.jpg
which directly connects its platter bearing to its tonearm support via a cast aluminium structure, condemns the fixed mounting dimension of the tonearm to expand and contract with changes in temperature. Over a 10 centigrade degree range, this dimension could possibly change by a few millimetres rendering your carefully executed arm geometry useless.
Furthermore....connecting the arm support directly to the supporting spindle of the platter, inevitably transfers all the vibrations of the revolving platter into the arm base, a design failure of mammoth proportion.
The belief that all turntable designers (and designs) of the past were competent is a demonstrable unfortunate absurdity.
Halcro
Over a 10 centigrade degree range, this dimension could possibly change by a few millimetres rendering your carefully executed arm geometry useless.
This seems a bit far fetched - a piece of aluminium 255mm will only expand by 0.0587mm for a 10 centigrade temperature change according to my calculations. Steel and bronze would be much less than this. Perhaps Halcro, since you design bridges, you could explain your maths.


Halcro
We have been thru the thermal expansion thing already. As I stated some months back, with an aluminium chassis, the change in spindle to arm distance due to delta temp is very small. Dover is correct, it is no where near a "few millimeters"
Of course the shelf on which you place your TT isn't immune to dimensional changes due to temperature. Don't know the material you use, but the change is also likely to be insignificant.

Cheers.



a piece of aluminium 255mm will only expand by 0.0587mm for a 10 centigrade temperature change according to my calculations.
You're correct Dover. Quite small but as record grooves are in the order of microns...I wouldn't be boasting about this concept as you and Lewm do.
The tonearm vibration is a more serious issue however.

BTW...it's not often an architect gets to design a bridge.
Halcro - indeed it is quite something to have designed a bridge. When you mentioned designing a bridge in your earlier posts I thought you were a dental technician, until I found out that you were an architect. I studied engineering at university and most architects only do a couple of basic engineering papers for their degree in New Zealand.
As regards vibration - yes I agree it is an issue. The Final uses a superplastic zinc alloy chassis base that dissipates any vibration between 10 & 100hz at room temperature internally at a molecular level. Both the platter and arm pod are bolted to this SPZ energy sink to achieve both loop rigidity and deal with vibration.