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.
128x128halcro
First, take some of the stuff on Vintage Knob with a grain of salt; that site is not always perfectly accurate.  
Second, if you can find the IC as an NOS part, via Alibaba or other internet source, it will probably cost a few bucks each.  And you would be MUCH better off at a MUCH lower cost than trying to source the IC by buying a whole turntable.  You would have to pay the cost for a working unit, too.

As to platter mass, the SP10 Mk3 has the heaviest platter that I know about among Japanese vintage DD turntables, except possibly for the optional and very rare gunmetal platter for the Yamaha GT2000X.  But that latter platter will cost you about as much as a good GT2000, if you can ever find one.  (For the heck of it, I have been searching.) The L07D platter is substantial but only a fraction of the weight of the other two.  It can be enhanced by the addition of an optional peripheral ring specifically made by Kenwood for the L07D, which I own but don't use. The SP10 Mk2 platter is not much different in weight from that of the TT101 and the Denon DP80.  I don't know about the Luxman platter; there are a few owners on this thread who may tell us.  One determinant of platter mass back then may have been the choice of motor.  For a given physical size, coreless motors produce less torque than do iron core motors, but the correlation between coreless motors and platter mass is not linear, either, except to note that the Mk3 uses a gigantic iron core multi-pole motor.  The Pioneer Exclusive P3 has an impressive platter and uses a coreless motor, on the other hand. The GT2000 uses a coreless motor but had an optional oversize bearing and that optional massive platter to be driven by that same coreless motor.
The Yamaha GT2000 series turntables use the coreless motor supplied by JVC if I recall correctly...🤓
Greetings from High End Munich...😎
No vintage DD tables in use here....
Tables of choice appear to be Kronos and TechDas.....but mostly they spin for show.
CDs and Servers are the popular (and easier) option.....and when the sound you hear is predominantly determined by the speaker system employed (Linn lied to us).....even I don't care 🤷‍♀️ 
lewm,

The 39 pound gunmetal platter was able to be utilised by the GT 2000, the GT 2000L and the GT 2000X. Not only the GT 2000X.