Vintage Denon Direct Drive Turntable

Treehugga,
Marble and granite are available in Japan. I've always been afraid that either one would ring like a bell...

Thanks, Tree. I should have written "SP10" instead of "SP20", but I guess that was an obvious typo. I admire your guts in drilling those three holes for the Denon; I had the guy who made the CAD file incorporate them into the program, then the waterjet cut them FIRST, before making the huge cut-out for the Denon chassis. That way there was no chance of the slate crumbling during drilling of the mount holes. Your waterjetter had the additional challenge of going thru 100mm of slate. That alone must have been a bit scary and requires skill with the machine. Next up will be my Lenco L75 in slate with the PTP top-plate (see Lenco Heaven for description). The slate is cut perfectly; I am now having the platter and the PTP painted satin black to match the plinth. But this is about direct-drive, not idler-.

Dear T bone: It happen that I own a DP-80 and DP-75 that seats in a 70-80lbs plinth of green marble and white onyx, beautiful stones.

Yes, like the granite mable/onyx " ring like a bell " if you " exited "/hit it but with a normal TT playing there is no problem.

Regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.

Forgot to reiterate that I think it is a good idea to dampen the resonance of that cosmetic ring that surrounds the platter on all Denon dd tables. If you're going to the trouble and expense of making a slate plinth, it behooves you not to overlook this detail. As I think I wrote way back at the beginning of this thread, I inverted my DP80 chassis (sans platter) on some blocks of wood for support, so as not to put weight on the spindle, and I filled the ring with some melted beeswax (or whatever was used as potting material in a KLH9 electrostatic speaker power supply). This worked very well; with the hardened beeswax filling, the ring does not "ring" any longer.

Lewn. I forgot to mention that I have filled the ring or skirt with isodamp compound (blacktac) as used in speaker cabinets, this is actually in contact with the plinth, and has given a deadening effect and added mass (not that I needed any more).

The dp80 is really singing now, I have stunning presence and intimacy to vocals. I cleaned it up earlier with WD40, that brought the natural grain up very nicely, and finshed with bees wax that gave it a nice shine.
Here are some more pics.

http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee15/indypepa/dp6.jpg
http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee15/indypepa/dp8.jpg
http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee15/indypepa/dp5.jpg