Which vintage direct drive?

They are also "JVC" in the US, just not the TT101, probably because all were sold in Japan or elsewhere in the "Far East" (as we here used to call Asia). I don't know about the TT81, etc.  This would fit with the story that my own dual voltage unit was made for American servicemen stationed in Japan.  So they could use the TT101 in Japan and then take it home at some later date.

Raul, There were 3 posts dated October, 2020, ahead of mine.  The last post before that was January, 2020, by Thuchan. Anyway, you know this is one of my favorite subjects, so I often cannot resist a comment on relevant threads.  On the DP80, if you use the manual speed corrector, it disengages the quartz-reference in the servo, so it is really a feature that one is best off to ignore.
Chakster, I would agree; by far the majority of TT101s are built to run on 100V only, but I have never seen one labeled "JVC" in lieu of "Victor".  I only noticed the 100/120 voltage feature on mine after I bought it.  Good that you have engaged the services of JP Jones, who fixed mine after 2 years of frustration on my part.  I "found" JP on a Technics SP10 thread; he has successfully built the SP10 integrated circuit necessary to run the Mk2 and Mk3, out of discrete parts that fit in the same space afforded to the IC, using SMDs.  Until JP made his part available, Mk2 and Mk3 users had to stow away old SL1200s, some of which also used this same chip for speed control, in case of chip failure. His home made chip is a bit more accurate than the original. Thus, although my SP10 MK3 was working perfectly, I eventually had JP install his chip into it. 


You may want to know that after JP found the fault in my TT101, it has run perfectly for the last two or more years. (The PCB was cracked, and the crack ran under a solder joint which covered the flaw, creating an intermittent problem.  Only a truly knowledgeable person would even think to look for it since it was rendered invisible by the solder and because of the intermittent nature.)  JP is simply "the best".

My particular TT101 works on 120V or 100V as selected at the transformer primary. Yet it is labeled “Victor”. The acronym JVC doesn’t appear anywhere. I’ve read that it was made for sale to American servicemen stationed in Japan, but that’s just from one source. Among vintage Japanese DDs with coreless motors, do not forget Yamaha GT2000 or 2000X, Kenwood L07D, and etc. My favorite inexpensive dark horse is Denon DP80, despite its iron core motor. In my house it beat out the SP10 Mk2. But don’t get any Denon below the Dp80.

Terry, You compared your top of the line Nottingham to an old technology, and chronologically old Technics DD.  That is really not a fair comparison of belt-drive vs direct-drive types.  The Dias would be far superior to the Technics, in so many ways other than the drive system.


Eno, So far as I recall, the Dual 721 is one of the earliest coreless motor DD turntables.  (I guess it came out after the Dual 701, which was the first.) Nearly all the coreless turntable motors that have followed on to the Dual borrow heavily, if not completely, from its design.  (Even the Brinkmann Bardo motor in the present tense.) In fact, I read that Kenwood got sued by Dual, because the Kenwood coreless motor so closely resembled the Dual design.  "Brushless" is neither here nor there, but is it quartz-referenced for speed control?  I ask because I think that idea came along later, late 1970s.  It's what distinguishes the Technics SP10 from the SP10 Mk2, for example.

Eno, You wrote, "I just learned that the TT-01 is the Japanese version and the JVC-QL10 is the American one."
That is not correct.  First, the alphanumeric designation of the chassis is TT101, not "TT-01", but I expect that was just a typo.  More importantly, the QL10 consists of a TT101 chassis + plinth + Victor tonearm, usually the UA7045 (9 inches) but sometimes the 12-inch version, UA7082 (I think). So, for Victor ("JVC" only in the USA), the TT prefix indicates a chassis with no plinth and no tonearm.  The QL prefix indicates a complete ready to use turntable system.  I can't comment on a comparison of the specific models you mention, because I only own one of them, the TT101/QL10. I added several pounds of mass and stiffness to the plinth, made an armboard out of aluminum to replace the standard MDF armboard, and then mounted a Fidelity Research FR64S tonearm with B60 base, to replace the UA7045, which I do intend to try out some time.  This combo is fantastic.  I think the QL10 would outperform the PL70, but the TTS-8000 with proper restoration and a careful set-up might compete with TT101, but like I said, I am not qualified to make these comparisons.  You'd still need the FR64S, in my opinion.