Vintage DD turntables. Are we living dangerously?

Yes surely - if were lucky it use the same transformer as the TT101 give me a call on Monday

Good Listening

Peter

Hi Peter,

Sorry for the late response. I like to resolve my hum noise first before deciding on a USA made step-down transformer. I will reach out to JP at a later date to see if he can help. Thanks for asking.

Norm 

For the most part belt drives are simpler, so I guess all of us spinning DD could be considered to be living on the edge. Complexity does come with its share of bugaboos.

Started my journey with an idler driven Dual back in 76 I believe. Then thinking like a lemming I jumped on the DD band wagon in 78 and a plethora of cheap tables followed in an attempt to get my lost music back.

Fast forward to the early 90s when I picked up an AR XA at a garage sale for the grand total of $15. Contacted AR, they still had replacement belts so I ordered two. Purchased a Grado Platinum, modified the headshell to accept a top mount cart and my music was back.

Later putting together a bedroom system I found mysdlf needing a table again. Purchased a Thorens TD166MKII, installed a Pickering XV15 1200E / D1200 cartridge stylus combo and thought I was set.

I’m not sure what happened to find me looking for another table, but for some odd reason I decided to give DD another go. Purchased the big Kenny, installed the Grado Platinum and was blown away by how much improvement I was hearing over both my other tables, both belt drives.

This lead me to my next Kenny table, the KD770D, and what a table it is. Currently running a Clearaudio Concept V2, nice quality cart I could live with, but it’s obvious the table cries out for more.

So, are we living on the edge with our vintage DD tables? I say, "who gives a flying ......" when they sound this good for just a song and a dance.

There has been quite a few posts in this thread about platter mats, especially for DD turntables. For my SP10mk3 (Krebs 2 mod), I have tried Boston Mat 1, Micro Seiki CU180 and the TTM Mat with Matching Oil filled clamp (http://www.usaudiomart.com/details/649203862-ttm-mat-2-and-oil-damped-stabilizerweight-combo/). Amongst these 3, the TTM was the best and after I introduced it to Albert Porter, he too thinks it's the best for the Sp10mk3. However, I have found an even better platter mat taht I would like to share with the group. It's Acoustical Systems SDP (http://www.arche-headshell.de/accessoires/sdp-the-sonically-most-effective-upgrade-for-every-turntable/). SDP stands for Special Decoupled Platter. This is not just a mat but an additional platter that decouples and isolates the bearing and spindle from the stylus. While most mats offer some isolationa dn decoupling of the platter, this is the only mat I know that also decouples the spindle. It stands head and shoulders above all the other mats. In fact, for me, the improvement it brought to my SP10Mk3 was greater than the Kreb mods. It's expensive and requires the arm-boards to be raised but it's worth the trouble IMHO. Especially for DD turntables where you have  the motor directly connected to the spindle (in most designs though there a few that are decoupled), it makes sense to decouple not only the platter but the spindle from the LP. Hence, SDP probably makes more improvements for DD turntables than Belt drive truntables. FWIW.

ddriveman

I looked on the Arche site and didn't see any pictures that answered some questions I have about that mat. Could you start a thread about it?

It'd be a shame to clog-up this thread with an off topic discussion.