Vintage DD turntables. Are we living dangerously?

Interesting.  The SC3042 IC is similar to the MN6042.  Not sure it's worth while, but happy to have the conversation. 

Totem and JP, As you also may be able to glean from reading Halcro's and my recent posts, a few years ago I was able to find and buy about 10 samples of the SC3042.  In the last few weeks, I sent two of them to a fellow aficionado in Germany, known to us as "Thuchan".  Thuchan had evidently purchased a broken TT101 with Halcro's help, and his tech determined that it needed replacement of SC3042.  Until this recent episode, I had no idea whether the chips I bought (from a vendor in Hong Kong) were genuine or even in operating condition, but Thuchan's tech got his TT101 up and running perfectly by virture of installing the chip I sent.  This is great news for me as well, because I have more SC3042 chips on hand. (By the way, I think they are still available from China and Hong Kong.)

My own TT101 has been "broken" too, since purchase about 3-4 years ago.  For that reason, I got it at a low price, approximately the value of the tonearm that came with it.  I happen to live very close to Bill Thalmann's shop in terms of highway driving, and Bill early on replaced all the electrolytics in my unit.  However, in Bill's shop, once the lytics were replaced, the TT101 refused to misbehave.  It worked perfectly on each of two visits to the shop.  In my house, it worked only intermittently, and every time I began to feel confident about it, it would go "on the fritz".  I tried all sorts of black magic to no permanent avail.  Then I started to try to trouble-shoot it myself. Suffice to say that in the process of trying to fix it, I converted the intermittent problem to a permanent and consistent problem.  Also, I am pretty sure at least that the problem is local to the PCB that contains the SC3042, although I lack the expertise to prove it's the SC3042.  (There's more than one chip on that board, and the others are not SC3042s.) However, Thuchan's tech tells us that his unit was misbehaving in a way similar to mine, so now I have hope that replacing the SC3042 may finally fix it.  How's that for a saga?

Bill worked on my SP10 Mk3 and on my Denon DP80. He's a great guy, and we are lucky to have him. Now that my TT101 is reliably malfunctioning, I hope to take it back to him for the 3rd time to finally trouble-shoot it. Either that or I may send it to Thuchan's tech in Germany, if the postage is not prohibitive in cost.

JP, Are you in the DMV area?  I'm watching snow accumulate on my car outside.

I do think there would be interest in an SC3042 PCB re-creation, certainly on my part and especially if the discrete circuit can outperform the chip.

Nothing worse than an intermittent problem, so it was good you made it permanent. 

I'm in NYC.  Nothing here yet. 

Got my Victor TT101 today, which have some speed issues - knew this when I bought it, so no surprise there.  My initial impression is that its overly complex, especially compared the the Technics SP10MK2 and MK3, which I both own too, and have refurbished.  Also especially complex if compared to the Denon DD tables I'm usually working on (DP3000, 2000, 6000 and 80)  

The motor seems robust - however the SP10Mk3 and the Denon DP80 in my opinion have more solidly built motors.  

It'll be interesting to get this one up and running correctly,  Ill give an update once it get it fully operational.

Good Listening

Peter

PBN, FYI, you're looking at a coreless motor.  They are built quite differently from the iron core motors used in both Denon and Technics DD turntables, in that you see no iron poles wrapped in coils of wire and in that iron core DD motors tend to be oriented vertically, shaped like a cylinder, whereas the TT101 motor and other coreless turntable motors are oriented in the horizontal plane.  Further,  "pound for pound", iron core motors will tend to have more torque than will coreless motors.  Plus, the latter have more issues related to cooling.  All that said, and given that you may know all of the above, IMO, coreless motors impart a certain effortless and very musical quality that is rather addictive. Of course, my opinion is based on the Kenwood L07D sound, since I have yet to hear my TT101.  Whatever one may say about the Krebs mod, data or no data to support it, to my ear the Krebs mod makes the SP10 Mk3 sound more like the world's best coreless-motor-driven tt than like the world's most powerful iron-core-motor dd tt (which it also is).  (I've got a DP80, too.  I kept it over the SP10 Mk2, because I thought it sounded better.)