Vintage Denon Direct Drive Turntable

Dunno. Can't account for the difference. I was quoting from notes I made last year (I looked it up last year when I was doing research on Japanese DD TTs from the 70s and 80s) but just now checked over at the Vinyl Engine website and found an English-language brochure for the DP-80 giving the same numbers I previously noted. Perhaps things were improved in the latter years of production and that is where your ad comes from. FWIW, the brochure provides a great deal of info on how the thing was designed and built - very instructive in its own way.

I've got the same brochure that Tbone is talking about, from the Vinyl Engine. The one for the DP80 does quote a 77db S/N ratio, as he says. Both 77db and 80db are well below the S/N ratio of any LP playback system, so noise per se is not going to be the issue with either the DP75 or the DP80. The question is how do these two tables sound, in general, with a high quality tonearm and cartridge in a well conceived plinth. I perceived two issues with the DP80 cum DK300 plinth: (1) The chassis is fastened to the deck with only three short wood screws, i.e., the coupling is suboptimal. (I think I mentioned this elsewhere in this thread; sorry. This can be ameliorated with better fasteners and/or more fasteners.), and (2) The DP80, like all Denon DD tts that I have seen, has a hollow cosmetic ring around its circumference, which would seem to be a source of resonance or possible coloration of the signal if energized. (Again, I mentioned this before; I "cured" the problem by inverting the chassis and filling the hollow inside of the ring with potting material I rescued from an old KLH 9 power supply.) But this is all twaddle until I get a chance to listen to it.

Be very wary of the Denons. There is a magnetic strip on the inside of the table with a pickup head to read the magnetic pulses. If the strip is scratched, or otherwise not in pristine shape, do not get the table.

As I understand it, the 80 was issued after the 75 and weighs more and has better speed stability. Since I am planning to build a plinth, that would seem to be the table to acquire.

T_bone or Lewm, can you give me a link to the brochure?

I was unaware of the magnetic stip concerns, and would assume these are no longer made? Hence the sensitivity?

The 75 improved on the 80 in some ways, and was made afterwards, I bet to a slightly lower price point when sold separately to assuage fans of the DP-80 (Denon themselves were trying to bring the DP-80 to the masses based on the DP-80's critical success and Japan's economic development in the meantime). The Vinyl Engine is a fantastic resource for fans of non-current analog equipment. The library for Denon is here.