SP10 Mk II vs Mk III

I think lead would be a bad move (toxic and its not very strong, certainly not rigid)- if it were me, I would design a plinth from solid machined aluminum (like we did for the old Empire 208), and then create a sandwich of dissimilar materials- an extensional damping compound, and maybe machined steel, so that you have rigidity and absolute deadness.

I get people joking that I should make an all-tube digital watch or GPS, I have to assume any comments about the Technics power supply come with the same friendly smiles :)

I've listened to the MkII for close to 30 years now- one of my best friends bought his new. It is very nice, but at least in the case of his machine there is one flaw that both of us have noticed- the plinth does not include the mount for the arm, which is on a separate surface.

It happens to be a fact of good 'table engineering that the platter bearing and the base of the tone arm must be as rigidly coupled together as possible. The better the coupling (and overall deadness) in this area, the better, and its the sort of thing that you hear immediately.

IMO/IME, a plinth that was designed for the MkII with this in mind would yield huge results, assuming that it was in fact rigid enough and dead enough.

Lew, you got it right. Here is the issue- somehow, you need the arm to transduce what is on the LP. In order to do that, there must be no play between the surface of the platter and the cantilever of the cartridge.

To that effect, the arm must have absolutely no slop in its bearings, no resonance in the arm tube. **Any** motion that is not caused by the LP will be interpreted as a sound if these conditions are not met. Thus, to further this, the base of the arm must be rigidly coupled to the surface of the platter. It does this through the bearing, and we are just hoping that whatever bearing we have is good enough. As far as the plinth is concerned, it has to couple the base of the arm to the bearing as rigidly as possible, while at the same time being completely dead. My work with our model 208 proved this to be a very audible aspect!

FWIW, anyone familiar with motorcycle or automotive issues will recognize this mechanical principle as it is the same one that requires that there be no mechanical play or flex between the steering and the wheel on the road, otherwise the vehicle will handle in a dangerous manner.

The plinth of the stock MkII does not take this into account- the arm is mounted on a completely different material. The plinth and the arm base thus have two different resonant signatures; any difference will manifest as a coloration.

Now, we might have the issue where the plinth and arm base are made from a single part, but with vibration the base of the arm is out of phase with the bearing mount; this is why I say ""as rigidly as possible**. As we all know, with LP reproduction we are always talking about microscopic movement and this is an area that the Technics engineers did not, at the time, have sorted. So it is my opinion that in order to get the best performance out of the 'table, that a custom plinth built to accommodate the needs of the Technics would be a very cool thing to build. It would be heavy, but cool.

Downunder, that's one of the OEM plinths for the Technics, the same as my friend has. If you want my opinion, it sucks- the arm board is resonant and has a cavity to help the resonance. It is purely built for looks and would look good alongside a Pioneer receiver in a wood cabinet.

Funny about that. There are a few of us here that would not be caught dead listening to a 70s vintage Pioneer, but no worries about the Technics :)

Lew, I was talking about a Pioneer receiver, not the table. I remember some of the Pioneer tables were not too bad, but the arms left a lot to be desired, as did that heavy Technics arm that was often found on the SP10 and SL1100s.

I always wanted an SP10 back in the old days but had to settle for the SL1100. Then everyone was telling me that belt drive was the big thing. Now DD is back...

Hi Lew, yes, I was referring to the EPA-100. My friend has used one for a while, only because he's not had the funds to replace it. He has one of those 'Mod Squad' versions, which was considerably better than the original, which he also has. So I've had a lot of exposure to both versions. I agree it is well-built, but it is also massive and the bearings are in the plane of the arm tube rather than the plane of the platter surface, which means that the arm has difficulty with warps and bass notes.

For clarity, the stock base I saw on eBay was what the MkII came with back in the 70s.