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want new plinth ideas for direct-drive turntables


By now, the idler-drive genre has enough ink on them without me adding anything new to the topic. What is little talked about is the "guts" of direct-drive tables. Many vintage DD units suffered from bad plinth design with inadequate solidity (often mounted to crappy plastic or flimsy particle-board) and inadequate isolation from resonance and interference of electronics.

I like the bare bone approach, that is, to take the motor out of the chassis/plinth/enclosure and mount it to a something solid, material of your own choice, and extend the cable by at least couple feet to the stock chassis or an enclosure that contains the electronics/motor-drive/control-console/power-supply. In fact, the Monaco Grand-Prix, Teres Certus, or early Micro-Seiki DDX/DQX-1000 takes the same approach.

Almost ALL DD tables can be improved this way. There are many other brands of superb DD tables with great potential out there can be had for very reasonable price and can be converted this way with good result. I no longer have any Technics tables on hand to experiment but I still got great results with some mid-priced JVC, Pioneer, Kenwood, Yamaha, etc... I haven't tried it on Sony and Denon tables yet because they require mounted a tapehead to check platter speed so the mounting is tricky. Modern belt-drive turntables have been doing similar things by separating the motor from the main plinth. Once again, Micro-Seiki was ahead of their time with their RX-1500 and beyond. It's only logical DD will go that direction. The days of having everything in a box for DD tables seems less attractive to me now.

If you have other ideas, feel free to talk about it here. And hopefully this will generate more new interest in the DD genre. Personally I am more interested in people's experience with brands other than Technics as they already got enough coverage in other forums and threads. Nothing against Technics, just want to direct attention to other sleepers out there. Anyway, still feel free to share ideas.

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hiho
hiho OP
451 posts
 

I never had the fortune to listen to an L07D but from a design standpoint it is worthy of its billing as a top of the line model and a world class DD table, so I am envious of you, Lewm. (coreless motors are wonderful, aren't they?) Yes, when I look at it the designers were thinking along the same lines. With that in mind, we can apply that to less expensive models of different brands. If the renaissance of plinth building for vintage idler-drive tables can be an inspiration, we can start address many underrated DD tables and explore their potentials all at a very reasonable price. Since many people are comfortable with Technics products, I recommend the SL-1300/1400/1500MK2 series as the motor is detachable from the electronics and their platters are much heavier than the ubiquitous SL-1200Mk2 and they are balanced with drill holes at the underbelly. The arm is mediocre so no loss if you gut it.

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lewm
13,301 posts
 
Hiho, What about the SP15 and SP25? How do those compare to the ones you listed above as donor tables? They are way less expensive than any SP10. You guys got me thinking (again) about separating the SP10 Mk2 motor from its chassis and on-board electronics. I have been able to resist the temptation so far. As long as this stuff does not get in the way of my ability to listen to and enjoy LPs, I am ok with it. This is the one advantage of having several turntables.
hiho OP
451 posts
 

The SP25 is not doable because it is essentially the same motor(and electronics) as the SL-1200Mk2 therefore the motor is attached to the pcb or to be precise the stator wires are soldered directly to the pcb, not a good candidate. The SP15 is doable as long as it's not too expensive for you to do this experiment - actually a very good candidate. I have one too but I need that for something else. The SL-1300/1400/1500Mk2 series is perfect for that because the motor is very similar to the SP15 and the electronics share the same chips! And they are inexpensive (used to be dirt cheap at one point) but do make sure you get one that its platter does not rotate in reverse or rocking back and forth, very common issue with them. My favorite is the very rare SL150Mk2, an armless and non-suspended version of the SL-1500Mk2. Oh, the SL-1301 and SL-1401 would work too but they have lighter platter. Overall the SL-1500Mk2 is ideal, if you can get one cheap.

As I said before, Pioneer integrated tables are the easiest in such models like PL-500, PL-600, PL-L100, (all 3 motors are swappable with each other's electronics) and the shortie PL-300 is a smoothie due to its coreless motor with Pioneer's SHR(Stable Hanging Rotor) bearing. Pioneer repeated some of their model numbers so they can be confusing and the ones I mentioned all have S-shaped tonearms. The earlier pre-SHR period Pioneer tables like PL-550 and PL-570 are excellent and easy to implement. I used them to belt-drive my passive platter but they are good performers on its own.

Bear in mind that this mod is reversible because you are just taking the motor out and rout the cable into the stock chassis so if you don't like it you can return to its stock form. If you get good result you might never want to put the guts back into the stock body again. You can of course house the electronics in another enclosure like the OMA SP10. All I am saying is that there are so many good DD tables out there with excellent guts waiting to be exploited. The best is to have a beater and have some wacky fun with it. :-)

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lewm
13,301 posts
 
Hiho, Don't own either SP15 or SP25. I was just conjecturing. If I do it, it would be with the SP10 Mk2. Have you made a template for the cut-out for a Mk2 motor?
hiho OP
451 posts
 

Due to financial situation, I was forced to sell all my SP10s. :( I still have some DD tables from various brands and a Lenco. Currently I do not have any belt-drive tables so I don't even qualify as an audiophile. :)

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