I love my JVC QLY66F. I bought it a few years ago. At first, I thought it was horrible. It howled like a banshee at higher volumes. I replaced the feet and stuffed as much plasticlay as I could inside the plinth and now it sounds and looks beautiful. It was my main table for some time and is what I've been using with a Denon DL-301 MK2 for the last two years or so to play grade all of my records. I've probably played well over 2,000 records on it now and am on my second DL-301 MK2. When it was in my main system I put some much better carts on it and it responded well to those. It has great drive and dynamics.
Vintage Japanese DD Consult and Suggestions Please
A little over five years ago, I worked with Chris Harban at Woodsong Audio to craft a bespoke Garrard 301 for me and my my vinyl collection. I had previously had a Dual of some model followed by a Thorens TD 160 with a nice Ortofon Black MM cart. The 301 was completely restored featuring a heavy mahogany plinth, Ortofon AS 309S tonearm, and Ortofon SPU head. I have completely blown away with how this table has sounded and looked. The sound was huge, rich, and detailed...everything that I heard that idle drives from this era should sound.
Unfortunately, some family health matters have forced me to liquidate some much revered audio gear, and recently placed my Garrard 301 up for sale. I do not wish to be without a way to continue to enjoy my collection and would somehow like to come as close to the performance of the 301 for around $2500 or so.
My considerations (thus far)for this change are as follows,
Denon DP80
Technics SP10 Mk 2 or 3
Technics SL 1000 Mk 2
Luxman PD 444
As you can see, I am curious about the more vintage looks and sound of the direct drives coming out of Japan, and am hoping to glean from this audience which of these units may provide me with the same (or as close to)level of enjoyment that my 301 has done. Thoughts on tonearm and MC cartridges pairings with each would be helpful.
I am not really considering anything belt driven at this time for whatever reason, or a deck that veers away from a traditional turntable aesthetic.
If it helps, the rest of the signal chain is as follows.
Aric Audio Motherlode preamp
Manley Steelhead phono pre
Aric Audio Transcend EL 34 push/pull amp
Klipsch Forte iv speakers.
I am grateful in advance for your thoughts on this matter.
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Raul, I more or less agree with your sentiments, but the OP specifically asked about vintage Japanese DDs. Thus he’s receiving opinions about vintage Japanese DDs. As to the SP10 mk3 vs the SP10R, JP Jones owns both and conducted a meticulous comparison test, using measurements not “I like it”. He shared some data with me, showing no significant differences between the two. |
@lewm +1 “JP Jones owns both and conducted a meticulous comparison test, using measurements not “I like it”. He shared some data with me, showing no significant differences between the two." I hear very small, both direction, mostly record and cartridge driven difference, between: SL1200MK4/SL1200GAE/SL1000MK2/SP10R.. SP10R with EPA100MK2 arm wins clearly only on excellent quality records.. for so-so records, there is no difference! as of measurements, it’s the same story, precise/low-noise-dist test vinyls is hard to find, mostly I have are lower quality than best music vinyls.. |
@alexv Thanks for the starting formula. i was an indentured servant in a pattern shop, i am fluent in adjusting for shrinkage… The armboards on my dual arm plinth are 30 mm Aero grade hardened / anodized aluminum. in the well on the plinth i’ve added Kinetic sand. I’ve got a few wood armboard in work including Ebony root and purpleheart and Panzerholtz. i have a lot of respect for Franz as i run his imo lovely sounding CAR-40. @lewm i believe a good deal of the magic of the big Denon are due the split platter and the magnetic pulse speed control system on the inside rim of the platter. Glad you mentioned platter. I should probably get an SP-10 of some ilk and muck about with that… best to all in music |
westcoast, JP Jones is a professional in the field of electronics. (I don't know exactly his degree level; he could be an EE or a physicist.) Until recently, he ran a business (Fidelis Analog) dedicated to the care and feeding of Technics DDs. It was my good fortune that he agreed to look at my "broken" Victor TT101, where he found a trivial but near invisible problem (a crack across a tracing in a PCB hiding under a blob of solder and causing a maddening intermittent speed problem) that eluded several other smart guys, and he fixed it. As you may know, he designed and built a PCB using discrete parts that replicates the function of the unobtainable chip that governs speed of the SP10 and lower level series of vintage Technics tables, and yet is small enough to directly replace the chip in the power supply (MN8042 is the chip designation, going only on my memory of the alphanumberic code). Therefore, he was able to test performance of the tables to a level and using methods that I don't completely understand. I bought my SP10 Mk3 in NOS condition, and I did not need to replace the chip, but I did it anyway, because JPs PCB outperforms the OEM chip out at the 4th or 5th decimal place where it probably does not matter much. So I take his comparative analysis of the 10R vs the 10 Mk3 seriously. He owns both. Tomic, yes the platter is both a virtue and a potential Achilles heel of the Denon DDs. (If anything should happen to damage the tape glued to the inside rim of the platter, I think it's curtains for the TT.) |
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