Building high-end 'tables cheap at Home Despot II

That IS hilarious Mario! It must've posted just as I was last posting, wish I'd have seen it sooner. Now THERE's a use for belt-drives :-)!

To take this opportunity to correct a mistaken impression many seem to have, I do NOT hate belt-drives, any more than I hate science! It is many scien-TISTS I take exception to, I have total faith in science...assuming no rules of evidence or logic are being broken, and that the pronouncements/authority of scien-TISTS don't supersede the evidence or logic of science (as is often the case today); just as I take exception to many fanatical belt-drivers (which only three years ago meant 99.999% of ALL turntable users). People are a thin-skinned lot: if you say a thing is GOOD; then they take it to mean the other thing is consequently BAD and take offense. Again nowhere have I ever written belt-drives cannot make music or are BAD, only that idlers are incredibly GOOD, to me it is simply a matter of which is the superior system, period.

So, there are some belt-drives and belt-drive designers I admire, who think outside the box, as it were. I LOVE the humble AR-XA and if I were forced to live with one for the rest of my life, then I'd happily do so, and mod it to accept a Mayware and mount as Decca to that (a Totality which is mind-boggling). A brilliant design, one of the best suspended 'tables ever made, the suspension really works! Bill Firebaugh's Well Tempered record player is brilliant, truly original thinking and effective design, don't be surprised anyone if some day I buy one for my collection, out of admiration for the design. Another brilliant design was and is the Roksan record player, with its brilliant solution to speed stability and stylus drag: a motor which rotates about its axis, held in place by a spring to prevent the belt from stretching and then contracting! I've heard them and admire them, and if I were a belt-driver I would have owned one, had I not stumbled on the little SP-25 first. Then of course, the fabulous Maplenoll: what could this design not conquer were it to hit the market today?!? Imagine, a turntable which sold rather cheaply with an air-bearing tonearm AND an air-bearing platter!!! Now in my experience this 'table had dynamics, PRaT and bass and SLAM coming out the ass. There are a couple of designs now on the market I will likely buy in future, on that thoretical day I have money to burn on pure indulgence. One is the Opus Continuo 'table from Scandinavia, and there are others.

The problem is, the fundamental assumption on which all these designs were founded was and is incorrect. In fact, if many of the Sacred Cows of Western Science were investigated, we would discover they are indeed built on at least one of these unexamined assumptions, and in many cases a whole host of assumptions piled up one on top if the other like a house of cards. With respect to vinyl, the designers trusted the research/conclusions which had gone before, and built for the prevailing paradigm: that the belt-drive was superior. Ay, THERE's the rub.

Anyway, for the moment I am having great fun restoring an Elac record-changer, an idler-wheel drive of course. These are great machines, very well-built, and I actually used one as my main machine a few years back, and laughed every time the record player turned itself off, and sometimes - GASP! - I even stacked records on it and let them fall one after the other while I relaxed on the Listening Couch, Yippeee!! I think I'll mount a decent cartridge on it, and take it out and play Crush the Belt-Drive. Lighter than my Lenco too :-).

Hi all,
I just completed a really nice DIY table based on a VPI Aries Blcak Knight platter and JMW 9 arm. The plinth is based of two pieces of mdf sandwiched by three 12 guage steel plates and topped with black acrylic. It is edged with Bloodwood attached with a constrained layer. I also have made a SAMA motor with a turned steel flywheel.I am using a Clearaudio Maestro Wood cartridge with it. Building this was a leap of faith and fortunately it has turned out very,very nice.
I am a computer neophyte but would like to post a picture of my new creation. If anyone can let me know how to do this or if I can email them a photo to post let me know. Thanks all!

Jean,
I'm anxious to hear your thoughts on the Elac. You and I have corresponded in the past about these machines and I'd like to learn from your experiences. These seem to be more attainable than the Lencos in my neck of the woods. For now, I'm pretty happy with my unaltered Dual 1219, but I'm also on the look out for a reasonably priced step up or modifications that will help the Dual.

Steve

Hi Steve, happy to see you're still here!! If your Dual is indeed in good trim, meaning the main bearing has no slack, then I would say the Elac would be a sideways step. That said, Elacs are very well-built, and seem to weather the years better than Duals (while I have come across many Duals with ruined bearings, I have yet to find an Elac with one), and the Elac is all-metal and simpler in its construction that the Duals. On the other hand, the Duals may have better tonearms (they LOOK better, but don't underestimate those clunky-looking Elac or Garrard tonearms, with their ring-bearing bearings identical to the fabulous AT 1005 MKII bearings), and some models do have excellent motors, like the Elacs (the Garrard SP-25s, especially the later models, had SUPERB motors).

But, if you strip down your Dual of its automatic system, solder better wire to the terminals, strip, clean and re-lube the motor, main bearing, apply a bit of Dynamat here and there, and bolt it to a plinth (don't go crazy here though, perhaps three layers would be enough, and similar in dimensions to the current plinth), you will get a LARGE improvement. If the Dual is Sacred, then buy an Elac, cheaper, and do the mods to it! For the one I'm working on now, I stripped, cleaned and re-lubed it every bit as carefully as I would a Garrard 301, and I soldered the original Rega tonearm-wire I had kicking around after re-wring mine for an improvement, but I'm leaving it in the original plinth with suspension, for now. I'll mount a good MM to it so as not to undermine it. I'll let you know how it works out. I'll post photos too, this Elac Miracord 40 is mint Art Deco beautiful!

Hi Agee, sounds like a lot of effort!! The only way I know of posting a photo is to register under a "system" here, as with mine. If you cruise the sign-in menu, you'll find "virtual systems", I think its called, and you can get back and announce its posting.

Just by way of brief introduction, I am currently working on a Lenco project with the generous assistance of "Oregon."

I wanted to throw in what I believe is an interesting little bit of background. When I was in high school, a good friend of mine had an awesome hi-fi. It was my first exposure to good music reproduction. We would partake in the sacrament (the sale of which financed the purchase of the hi-fi) and listen to music for hours and hours.

In college I started on my pursuit of quality sound reproduction. But, alas, no matter how much money I have spent (and I've spent a LOT of money over the years) I have not experienced the depth of emotional connection to the music that I experienced back in high school. For years I have attributed that to the naive inexperienced ear of my youth. But now I think I understand. His turntable was a Dual 1229, an idler wheel design.

So many thousands of dollars later, and twenty years of digital jitters, and my stoned high school buddy's little system with an idler wheel up front would probably still best mine in terms of sheer musicality. I feel like I should be able to sue somebody!

By the way, does anybody have any experience with the Dual 1229? There's one for sale on e-bay and I'm thinking of buying it.