Vintage Denon Direct Drive Turntable

Thanks everyone for your responses and information. This Denon still interests me and I'll report on the project.

FWIW, the 75 (which came with plinth), and the 80 (which was sold plinthless, but with at least three choices of plinth) are not that far off in terms of specs. The DP-75M was JPY 180,000 (with plinth and arm), and the DP-80 was JPY 95,000 by itself, the DK-2300 plinth retailed for JPY 70,000, and arm was separate. The S/N ratio and self-reported WOW/Flutter numbers are better on the 75, but the Japan Institute of Standards put the WOW of both at the same level (and both slightly higher than the self-reported numbers). The spin-up of the 80 is supposed to be slightly faster, and the DP-80+DK-2300 is about 10% heavier than the DP-75M (including arm). Either one should be serious contenders as those were the prices of most firms' 'one-down-from-the-top' offerings around 1980 (the top-priced offerings were things like the DP-100M, Technics SL-1000, Yamaha PX-1, Sony PS-X9, Exclusive P-3a, etc).

I would love to try one a Denon but I have too many 'projects' lying in wait...

T bone, thanks for your insights. I am wondering about wow and flutter in a turntable, which would be reflection of speed irregularity rather than noise, I think. In the brochure for the DP80, Denon claims unprecedented speed stability, so whatever the measured numbers were, I would assume they were low compared to the competition. What were the numbers, do you know? I think we were talking about signal to noise or rumble specs before.

S/N Ratio: DP-80 S is 77; DP-75M is 80dB
Wow/Flutter: DP-80 is <0.015%; DP-75M is < 0.008%w.rms
The JIS measure shows both below 0.02%.
I don't know how rumble is measured.

Wow and flutter (originally separate measurements, now put together) measure the level of frequency instability below and above 4Hz of wobble. I read once a long time ago that the weighting system of measurement tends to be inaccurate at high wobble frequencies, making it effectively meaningless. I have thought that this is one reason why high mass platters are supposed to sound better on almost every kind of drive system - they effectively reduce the possibility of high levels of high frequency flutter.

As for levels vs the competition, it was quite good (there weren't many tables made which spec-ed better) but several tables were similarly below 0.015% or 0.1%.

Thanks, T bone. I had seen those numbers for S/N in Denon literature. I look forward to the DP80 listening experience, if I can ever find the time to make or have made a plinth for it.