Vintage DD turntables. Are we living dangerously?


I have just acquired a 32 year old JVC/Victor TT-101 DD turntable after having its lesser brother, the TT-81 for the last year.
TT-101
This is one of the great DD designs made at a time when the giant Japanese electronics companies like Technics, Denon, JVC/Victor and Pioneer could pour millions of dollars into 'flagship' models to 'enhance' their lower range models which often sold in the millions.
Because of their complexity however.......if they malfunction.....parts are 'unobtanium'....and they often cannot be repaired.
128x128halcro
Just procured a batch of the other unobtanium IC for the Victor TT101- IC813 the Toshiba TC5001 - had to buy ten of them so anyone should need one in the future I have a stash :-)

Good Listening


Peter 
Peter, I thought I noticed that not one but several other ICs appeared to be used in the TT101. However, all seemed to be of the same type, based on cursory examination.  Is this the one you've now got?  How many would hypothetically be needed to re-do an entire TT101 circuit, assuming that one would need several of one kind?  Thanks.
chakster:

I use acupwr for my japanesse vintage gear: http://acupwr.com/pages/voltage-transformers-converters

Made in the usa, but likely just as good as Lewm's chinese step downs. :). It doesn't vibrate and doesn't heat up and neither does the gear connected to it. Having said that, I just bought a japanese made step down, partly because it is Japanese but primarily because I needed more outlets. I'm curious to see whether there are sonic diferences btw the two.
Banquo, If you hear differences in the sound of your analog based on the brand and source of your step-down transformer, THAT would be worth reporting here, provided that the inferior sounding step-down was not in any way malfunctioning. Come to think of it, I am not sure that my SDTs were made in China; I only assume that to be the case, because isn’t everything these days made in China? Could be Japanese as well.

On a more newsworthy note:  UPS delivered my TT101 back from JP tonight.  It works!!!!!  Of course, it has worked in the past only to fail eventually.  But this time JP got to work on it when it was in failure mode, which allowed him to trace the problem to a probable source.  And he fixed that issue.  So I have reason to be optimistic.
Good for you Lewm. I hope it was all worth the trouble. You own some other very nice DD tables and I for one look forward to reading how the tt 101 compares.