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How good is the Micro Seiki DDX-1000 Direct Drive turntable ?

Here is the MICRO DDX-1000 direct drive. Never tried myself, but it is the most compact DD designed for 3 tonearms.

*The question is how good this turntable really is, compared to some other vintage Direct Drives ?


Some information from VintageKnob website:  

The DDX-1000 is the original design, with two sculpted strobe markings around the 2kg / 31cm die-cast aluminium platter. The resulting moment of inertia is at 330kg / cm2 and the top mat in fact covers a thick cork sub-mat set inside the platter itself.

The DDX-1000, in real late 70s modernism is a direct-drive. The motor is a DC-Servo with FG frequency generator reference set through the strobe neon lamp which "checks" how many stripe it sees and rectifies if necessary ; the resulting speed accuracy is of 0,03%.

The starting torque is of 1,2kg / cm and load characteristics allow the DDX-1000 to remain below 0,04% deviation up to a 3g load set at the outer limit of the platter - specs-wise, we're here under the contemporary Sony TTS-8000 for instance...

The heigh-adjustable feet are typical Micro Seiki (or Luxman, of course :) and contain a mix of inert damping (neoprene stuffing) and mechanical damping (spring).

The is no Quartz Lock on the DDX-1000 ; the MD-1000 power-supply box holds the power on/off, start 33rpm, start 45rpm and stop buttons plus two ± 6% speed controls.

The AX-1G to AX-6G tonearm bases fit everything from the ubiquitous SMEs to the Technics EPA-100 or PUA-1600L.

Of course, the motor of the DDX was used as basis for the Marantz Tt 1000 (1979), and that of the DQX-1500 (an updated DQX-1000) for the Tt 1000 mkII (1992). And, as often, Micro's direct-drive motors came from... Victor.


DDX-1000/G :

April 1976 limited edition (really limited : 30 units) custom made in... bronze. Howerever, it is black-looking for the most part, with the bronze only kept visible for the top of the three feet ; the platter was kept in AL and the command box was anodized in all-black style ; even the AX-1/G was in-bronze-but-painted-black...
Names of the people they were made for (and offered to - these were gifts !) were silkscreened on the (bronze...) motor's cache (...but painted black) - a rarity to say the least.


The DDX-1000 naturally spawned a myriad of lookalikes and still does today - perhaps better than the original, perhaps not. Or not that much :) 

128x128chakster

Showing 2 responses by agosto

agosto
45 posts
 
FWIW: I own a DDX-1000 for many years and so far have experienced the following issues:

1. Strobe light failed (needed to fix internal circuit, this is not (!) the line (50/60Hz) frequency
2. Speed adjustment: The pots needed cleaning once
3. Bearing noise: Disassembled motor and serviced bearing.
4. Replaced the rubber foot insulators with Vibrapods

The above is the summary of issues I encountered over 15 years, so not bad in my opinion and I am very happy with the unit. I have two arms installed (Dynavector DV507/Goldring Eroica and SME 3009/2/Denon DL 103.

Most of the above was already mentioned in this post. Annoying is the missing dust cover. I need to clean the rubber mat prior to each use.
agosto
45 posts
 
@mammothguy54es, thanks I thought about that as well. The only reason I did not do this was for visual appearance reason.  I have seen dust covers made of plexiglass but they need to be placed somewhere when the turntable is in use...

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