Vintage DD turntables. Are we living dangerously?


I have just acquired a 32 year old JVC/Victor TT-101 DD turntable after having its lesser brother, the TT-81 for the last year.
TT-101
This is one of the great DD designs made at a time when the giant Japanese electronics companies like Technics, Denon, JVC/Victor and Pioneer could pour millions of dollars into 'flagship' models to 'enhance' their lower range models which often sold in the millions.
Because of their complexity however.......if they malfunction.....parts are 'unobtanium'....and they often cannot be repaired.
128x128halcro
Harold, You are welcome to dissect the wonderfulness of the L07D and attribute that quality to magnetic levitation of the platter, but I think that misses the point. IMO, the L07D is transcendent because in its design every aspect of construction and function was considered and addressed in one single product, from plinth to headshell. One may quibble here and there with some of the choices that were made, but there is no denying that the L07D's excellence is the product of its "whole-ocity", if Harvey Rosenberg will forgive me for borrowing his parlance.

Doron, I have never seen in person an EMT927, but in my mind the EMT927 and the Lenco L75 are at opposite ends of a spectrum; the Lenco is on the "less is more" end of the spectrum, and the EMT is on the "more is more" end of the same spectrum. The business of torque is a mystery to me, because there is to some degree a correlation between torque and performance for dd and idler tt's (leaving belt-drive out of the discussion), but with some exceptions. The Lenco has a physically large and powerful motor, but the torque that can be delivered to the platter is always limited by the coefficient of friction between the idler wheel and the platter surface that is in contact with the idler wheel. In a Lenco, that contact patch must be small, because there was a negative trade-off to using a wide idler wheel, as is typical for idlers that drive the inside rim of the platter or the outside edge; a wide contact patch would cause "scrubbing" in a Lenco, between the idler wheel which "wants" to go in a straight line and the platter, which must rotate in an arc. So, the torque of a Lenco is truncated by the force required for the wheel to dissociate from the underside of the platter and skid. If you grab the platter, you can feel that happening well before the motor comes to a stop.
Lewm, I do believe that the L07D is a triumph in TT design namely due its successfully completed construction in every aspect in one single product. I just think that the maglev is the dot of i, so to speak.

The Victor TT-101 is a triumph in speed accuracy & stability as Halcro has proved in his videos with the 3 TAs in action at the same time. I just wonder how it would perform with maglev on its spindle...

Both are truly exceptional and superb TT designs, even in today´s standards IMO.
Small point: As I understand it, the L07D platter is not completely suspended via Maglev. Rather, the load is only partially dissipated in that fashion; there is still some vertical force exerted on the bearing and thrust pad. (I never have pushed down on my platter so as to prove that to myself.) But to your point, the Kenwood engineers definitely saw some benefit in Maglev.
Kenwood´s platter in partly "suspended" like Clearaudio´s. Actually it´s not floating and the spindle maintain contact with the trust pad. But the maglev takes platter´s weight in some extent and the force exerted on the spindle and trust pad is less. Does the maglev take the most or a great part of platter´s weight is another thing. Anyway, maglev in general provides some kind of benefit in sound quality. In my system it´s a serious improvement.