Solid state diodes won't burn out, and even if they did fail, they are very replaceable with modern superior diodes. I know of no reason not to do as you suggest, but I have never tried it, because some of my tt's go for many months without being used.
With the TT101, the Power button only activates the circuitry. I presume you still have control over whether or not the platter is spinning, using the other buttons for that purpose.
But yes, I am surprised that you have not already replaced the caps. In this case, it's more likely you've developed a faulty switch. No big deal. |
That post has been re-posted ad nauseam and influenced many to fear owning these turntables. The situation is far from being as bleak as it is described. I even suspect that the quoted dealer in Hong Kong may have had another agenda, like selling new turntables that he can actually get his hands on. I doubt he can do enough business selling Kenwood L07Ds or Denon DP80s to stay "alive". |
I am hearing a noise from my TT101, but only at 45 rpm. It is silent at 33 rpm. It's an irregular regular pulsation that could be bearing friction, and in the absence of any other good ideas, I assume it IS bearing friction. I am planning to unscrew that plug at the bottom of the bearing well, to see what's going on, to clean up the bearing, and to re-lube. Has anyone had a similar problem or heard a similar noise? If anyone has done a re-lube, what did you use for lubricant? Any other issues re removing that plug? I know that someone mentioned it also controls platter height. This noise did not appear until after Bill Thalmann had run the tt for days on end, in order to prove to himself that the speed was stable after servicing it. The bearing is supposed to not need maintenance, but I have to think JVC Victor were not contemplating a 30+ year lifespan. |
Banquo,
We've never "pulled" the motor, and so far as I can tell by inspection, no one has ever messed with the screw that allows access to the bearing thrust plate. But when you say the motor rests on washers, I have to think. As you know, the electronics all hang on the metal assembly that also contains the motor per se. Are these "washers" accessed by trying to remove the motor from the rest of the metal structure? If so, mine should still have them; I am pretty sure Bill did not take that apart, and I know I didn't either.
Thanks for all your suggestions. I agree that now is the time to service the bearing. |
Dear Dickson, Thanks for all the suggestions, but as I wrote earlier, the bearing was never messed with, nor was the motor per se ever removed from the main chassis (at least not by me or Bill Thalmann), and I did check to see if there was visible rubbing or any physical contact between the rotating platter and the well in which it sits, and I could detect none. Moreover, now that I think of it, the noise should be present at 33 as well as at 45, if it's simply a matter of platter height and "rubbing". Yet the unit is silent at 33, or at least silent enough that I do not hear the noise from about 2 feet away at 33. (Probably should get out my stethoscope.) We shall see.
Oh, and the last thing I would ever do is to hold you responsible for anything. I am no virgin when it comes to DIY or direct-drive. |
Aigenga, I have some of that Redline Racing oil. It was recommended by Howard G Stern for use in the Kenwood L07D bearing. (Howard is the L07D guru and keeper of the L07D website, not the radio jerk.) Thanks to all for your suggestions. At the moment, I sent off the TT101 for repair of a persisting problem that neither I nor Bill Thalmann have been able to cure. I don't expect to have it back for a few months, but I will keep the ideas in mind. If the problem cannot be fixed, the rubbing noise is not going to concern me very much; I will have to put the TT101 on display as a museum piece or use it as a doorstop or a boat anchor. |
I am kind of regretting sending off my TT101, because I feel like I could have figured it out. And Bill would have been glad to help. He still does not even know that I've had problems since its second visit to his shop. He didn't even charge me the second time around. So far as I could tell by visual inspection, every single one of those through-hole eyelets had been re-soldered, by the time I got finished with it, and after Bill had already done most of them.
The weird thing was how it worked well in Bill's shop after the FIRST round of repair. I took it home and it had problems. I took it back, and after he did the above mentioned soldering, it worked fine again in his shop. You know the rest. Bill and I joked about an evil spirit in my house, because my Beveridge amplifiers also had a similar strange set of geographically dependent symptoms, for a while. The Bev amps are totally up and running now, however, with no problems at all. |
Dear Hiho, I stand corrected. I am in fact aware of the business, Top Class Audio. But still…
The big issue with these turntables is the integrated circuits that were used here and there. ICs come and go over time, and once they're gone from products, they are no longer made. There is no imperative for an electronics company to keep updating the same part over time. With discrete transistors, we are much better off, because such devices have basic functions that are always needed. Thus the bad transistors used in Denon turntables (known to be noisy and prone to failure) were readily replaced by Bill Thalmann in my DP80 with modern, quieter, and much more reliable equivalents. Other than the ICs, every other part in any of these tables can be replaced, therefore. This is why I harp on replacing 30-year-old electrolytic capacitors. One bad capacitor can wipe out an irreplaceable IC. However, I have had good luck finding the single IC used in the DP80 and the clock IC used in the TT101, from Hong Kong sources found on Alibaba. So it is not a totally hopeless problem, if it should arise. (TT101 uses several more ICs, however, and I don't know whether those can be found or not.) |
Banquo, It is certainly true that the noise I hear is not "obviously" due to bearing friction, so I am open-minded as to other causes. But I did inspect the spacing around the platter, between the edge of the platter and the escutcheon, and I did not see any area of contact between the two. Is that what you mean?
As to the bearing, I gather you are saying that altho you do not think the noise is coming from the bearing you do think I should clean and lubricate the bearing. Yes?
I actually bought my TT101 as part of a QL10 ensemble. Thus I have the original Victor plinth with a 7045 tonearm mounted on it. My plan was, heaven forbid, to use it AS IS, first of all. After that, I was indeed thinking of a minimalist but heavy and sturdy probably metal support structure that I would say IS a plinth but some would say is a manifestation of plinthlessness. I am done with slate. I think it's great stuff, but I am finished with the aggravation associated with purchase, getting it cut, drilling holes, oiling the surface, etc, in order to end up with a nice finished product. I did it for SP10 Mk2, Mk3, and Denon DP80. Now I'm done. |
I was afraid someone would ask. I described this once before.
Here is what it does, in my house. (It did not do this in Bill Thalmann's shop, last time I picked it up there; it worked perfectly.) When you start it up at either 33 or 45, it gets up to speed, but the tach reads typically 33.32 or 33.34, instead of 33.33. It will run properly for about 30 seconds to a minute. Then it shuts down back to "Power on" condition. When it thus shuts itself down, the brake action also fails to engage; the platter just continues to spin until friction and loss of inertia bring it to a stop. IF you press the STOP button while it is still up to speed, it DOES activate its brake (which in this case is simply the reverse servo activating). It was doing this when I brought it to Bill for a second time, several months ago. He re-soldered some questionable tracings, etc, and got it to work fine in his shop, as noted above. When I went to retrieve it, I also observed that it was working fine. Not so, when I got it back home to my house. (Bill's shop is about 30 minutes from my home, driving on the DC beltway, Rte 495.) I then took it apart and soldered the leads at some of those through-hole posts; Bill had already done some of that. Someone here, I think Aigenga recommended that approach, too. My efforts did nothing to correct the problem. In fact, if anything I made the problem a bit worse, because prior to that the tach would first go to 33.33, as it should, and only then start to show 33.34 before the shutdown. Frankly, I was embarrassed to take the thing back to Bill yet again. I Googled "Victor turntable repair" and found a place near Philadelphia, BC Electronics. Another hobbyist said that the guy at BC repaired his Sony 8750 very nicely after others had failed. He has my TT101 at this time. I am not optimistic that BC has any particular genius or insight into the TT101; he admitted that he had never worked on one. |
Fortunately for me (i) I was careful to pay only the value of the 7045 tonearm and plinth, when I bought the QL10 ensemble. So if I never fix the TT101, I am out only the cost of the service, and (ii) I have a Denon DP80, Kenwood L07D, and Technics SP10 Mk3, not to mention my Lenco, to console me while I await a verdict.
So, "Don't cry for me, Argentina". |
