Vintage DD turntables. Are we living dangerously?

NO!! Those of us who choose to buy vintage gear know the risks and if that is living dangerously...then so be it.

I purchased a mint 1 owner Denon DP-45F Direct Drive TT - locally in my home city. So I avoided the potential pitfalls of shipping a TT. Then I got a sense of the owner - pride of owning his equipment, etc.

I know that these Denons have microprocessors/capacitors - that if they fail....there can be trouble. I took a chance. After I purchased it I took it to a reputable electronics repair shop in the city and asked him to give the TT a thorough going over, make any necessary adjustments and replace anything that needed replacing.

He called and told me the deck was as clean on the inside as it was on the outside / that the main capacitors had already been replaced with quality parts / and that except for a minor adjustment or two the TT was good to go, and likely for many more years. He installed the new cart and I have been in vinyl-spinning bliss since.

The TT works flawlessly. Could it "die" anytime? Sure, but so can any modern TT. And there are more spare parts for old TT's then many people know. My tech (who owns the company and has for 30 years) says you'd be surprised what he can come up with (parts) and find somewhere in the world if he has to.

For those of us that like vintage, we take on those risks - knowingly.

Living on the edge!

Good listening,

cat9

Cat9, Capacitors are cheap, available, and better than ever. That's why I repeat ad nauseam that one ought to routinely replace electrolytic capacitors in the circuits of these old DD turntables, because failure of one of them can lead to destruction of a "microprocessor" that might be unobtainium. (In fact, your DP45 probably has only one IC, at most, but it controls major aspects of tt function. I found 3-4 years ago that it was not unobtainable, if one does a parts search on Google. I don't know whether it's still buy-able.) There are several discrete transistors in the Denon DD turntable circuits; all of those are either available or replaced by better versions. You will have no problems replacing the discrete transistors, if needed. It's that single IC you need to worry about.

Well said Lewm - that IC is the achilles heel!
Until then we enjoy!!

I've got two spares for my Denon DP80, but I believe it is not the same IC as what was used in most of the other models. If the caps are kept tip-top, and if one does not plug a 100V Denon into a 115V AC outlet, all should be well. (I am pretty sure someone who owned it before me blew the IC in my DP80 by doing that. Or, as he told me, "we always plugged it into the wall directly with no problems". This means that since the turntable continued to rotate, there could not be a problem. No matter that it was off speed and that the strobe light no longer functioned as a strobe.)

To avoid hijacking Peterayer's Timeline Thread any longer.......I thought that we could post our recent travails with our vintage DD turntables in this more appropriate Thread......

Lewm has had a litany of problems with his TT-101, but has recently had it running more or less correctly at his home.

My Victor TT-101 began misbehaving about a month ago and whilst it was at the Technician's for a complete rebuild......I had my back-up TT-81 to play with.
Here are the innards of the TT-81 which is quite a bit different to that of the TT-101.
Another view of the TT-81 showing the single-sided PCB compared to the stack double-sided PCBs of the TT-101.

Today I picked up my TT-101 after the replacement of every single capacitor and the removal and replacement of all solder points and joints (thanks Banquo).
In other words....it has been completely rebuilt!
The most difficult problem apparently....was diagnosing and repairing the intermittently malfunctioning Power switch.
The switch works by way of a circular 'gear drive' which moves one position at each click which in turn activates the actual switch??
Why they design it this way is a mystery to me.....but after lubricating the gear drive and still finding the fault via a 'spark' from the switch......the Tech replaced the switch.
I have had one listening session today...and so far so good......:-)