A couple questions regarding a potential DIY build using parts salvaged from older TT's.
Plinth, tonearm, platter and bearing will most likely be made from scratch.
Regarding a motor/drive system. Is there a preference as to using a DD, Idler, or Belt Drive system?
Once that is answered what brand of TT would be best to salvage such parts from? This will be a 1st build and as such looking for something relatively economical, easy to find in North America and generally known as reliable.
I guess I'm not understanding your thinking. If you salvage the plinth, tonearm, platter and main bearing from another table, why go to the troube of diy'ing another drive system for what is essentially a complete table already?
The plinth along with the platter and possibly the main bearing will have already been set up for the drive mechanism which existed in the original table. Trying to build a new drive system is sort of like the days when people would put small block Chevy engines in the back of a VW bug. Went like HE11 but couldn't stop or corner worth a d*mn.
I guess I need to know what you're trying to achieve if you're building from scrap parts. Why not just buy a decent table and be done with it?
Your analogy is like asking why I would cook a gourmet meal for friends when I could take them to a restaurant. One I love to cook and two there is something special about making things with your own hands. It's like I am asking what is a great cut of beef to grind up and grill burgers on the barbecue and you suggest heading to the Golden Arches...LOL
Ist build may be just build a plinth and drop in the refurbished innards of a thrift store find for practise.
Then I want to progress to a more DIY manual table with a linear tracking arm, unique plinth, and possibly platter all DIY with a strong/reliable motor and controllers salvaged from an old TT.
Just like the Lenco DIYers build unique one of a kind plinths/turntables. I could send tons of links of beautiful DIY tables that look great and sound nice also.
I have a Systemdek IIX already that I have used for years. Sound nice but looks BORING. I wouldn't want to gut it for parts thats why I am asking what motors etc. are readily available, reliable and would be a reasonable choice to use in a DIY build.
I've done my share of diy and cooking over the years.
However, if you begin with a direct drive table, you won't have much success converting it to a belt or rim drive. There's no bearing system to work with since the main bearing connected to the platter is the motor shaft. Pretty much the same in the opposite direction, you can't take a belt drive table and make it a direct drive. About all you could do is take the platter from a belt drive and put it on a direct drive motor. What would you have accomplished? It's still a direct drive table and a belt drive platter probably isn't appropriate for it. Specific formats of tables require certain things of the drive and bearing systems. Just dropping "the refurbished innards of a thrift store find" into, say, an oak plinth accomplishes, what? A better looking but still cheap and not so great bargain find?
What are you referring to when you say "refurbished" innards" Are you going to refinish the polishing of the main bearing? Why not just have a shop machine a completely new bearing from scratch from better materials? Are you going to change something about the drive system? Add an extra motor or something? Or change the tonearm in some way? I'm sure you know the tonearm must be set at a specific distance from the centre spindle to maintain its correct tracking across the arc of a LP. So what would you change about the tonearm to make it "refurbished"?
I'm trying to get to what you feel is diy and what is simply putting a bunch of disparate parts together on a new base. Take the main bearing of a Pioneer turntable and "refurbish" the main bearing well and the thrust bearing and you have, what? As the saying goes, you shouldn't polish a t*rd. To perform well, a turntable should be thought of as a system of parts all woking together and not piece from here and a piece from there. Even thinking in microns is not sufficient when you are dealing with LP's. So, what are you thinking will be "refurbished parts"? And, how are you going to refurbish them?
The Lenco, Thorens, Garrard. Rek-O-Kuts and so forth that are typically placed in new plinths are coming from tables which had pretty lousy suspensions - or no suspensions - to begin with. Many were transcription tables which came from the manufacturer without a plinth so something must be configured for them. Is that what you want to do? Take something like an old TD124 and put it in a new plinth and then rebuild the 124 back to new status using modern parts? In that case, you would use the drive system Thorens originally designed for the 124. The Thorens drive system is the beauty of the 124. To change it would be criminal.
Most of these tables came without an arm so a new arm is most often required to bring the table up to modern standards. Or you use one of the reintroduced arms such as the Ortofon arms to make the table more period correct. But no one, as far as I know, taking the arm from just some old 1980's Sony table they found in a bargain shop and putting it on an old Lenco.
Sorry, you've lost me with your plans. Maybe you can be more specific. Why not just build a new base for your Systemdek? You can buy a DC motor which would simply drop in to replace the original AC drive system. Put on a new arm and call it a day!
I think this is a silly thing to do to a perfectly good Dual 701. The Dual, as it came from the manufacturer, had a much better suspension system than the final diy table does. And I wouldn't doubt the Dual arm was actually much better than what is being used on this diy.
You are really reading more into what I want to do.
I might not do that particular project to a 701 but I would try it with a DD motor from some other TT.
For a 1st build you have linked to exactly what I mean. Build a whole new base/plinth, feet etc. then take a thrift store bargain and refurbish as in clean it up, lubricate it, new belt or idler etc. if needed and drop it in. This would be to get practise doing such things.(just picked up a Dual 1009F ripped out of an old console)
I wouldn't want to try that with my Systemdek as a newbie.
Then as my skills progress either try a similar project as in building a unique plinth and maybe dropping in a better table and yes even a 701 into something like this http://www.audiowood.com/gallery/knobby.html
links are included just to show the range of aesthetics not to suggest I would use the same parts or infringe on their designs, patents copyrights etc.
My last option could be either using multiple salvaged parts and trying
(Unique form and material is what I desire aesthetically)
Or,I would salvage (then spend mega$$$ on new) a reliable motor and the electronic controls, since the base/plinth, tonearm(linear tracking), and possibly platter,bearing etc. would quite likely all be made from scratch.
I have to conclude you're after looks more than sound quality. I can't think any of the wood laden conversions have helped the table perform to a higher standard. The Lenco? Well, Lencos have for decades been subjected to all sorts of ideas for how to "dress up" the table. Most are not engineered/designed or even thought out so much as dreamt up. IMO many people simply don't understand the intricacies and the degree of refinement required to truly improve a table. Most do not understand isolation and suspension systems nor how the tonearm should be damped or undamped by the plinth. The idea of a table acting as a closed loop system escapes them.
DIY is fine and you can have a good time with it. And I've seldom come across anyone who diy's anything who doesn't think they've improved on the original. I can't argue with what someone else sees or hears so, to each their own.
Please be kind to the 1009, it's one of my favorite tables. The tonearm is far superior to the vast majority of arms which followed from other mass market designers. It's very well suited to a medium to high mass cartridges with mid to low compliance. Not the last word in rigidity obviously, it's still a good baseline for listening to vintage cartridge designs if you use, say, a Zu Audio version of a Denon 103 which, IMO, is a very under rated cartridge on its own.
You might be interested in reading Art Dudley's series of articles in Stereophile which followed his rebuild of a Thorens 124.
Again, to each their own but, other than possessing unique visuals, IMO a linear tracking arm is still a fairly poor performer. A few high end designs are functionally well thought out but nowdays most high end cartridges are not well suited to the mass/compliance of the average linear tracking arm.
You are finally correct on something. I am interested in visuals but as well as sound not instead of.
Vinyl accounts for maybe 10% of my listening.
My main 2 channel system consists of Totem speakers, two Simaudio Celeste 4070se's in mono config, with an Antique Sound Lab tube pre. A Shanling CD player is the main source. During the last 20 years most of the music acquired were only available on CD. The few hundred vinyl I acquired previously consisted mainly of standard pressings with only a handful of reference type recordings.I have a great working Systemdek IIX that gives me a sound I enjoy and can live with.
Earlier you used an example of putting a Chevy engine in a VW bug. I'm trying to say to say that you have it backwards.
Let's say I think a Delorean is a great vintage car. I could never afford one but what if there is a kit car package out there.
I am saying that if I can acquire a VW bug give it a real good tuneup and maybe a few after market tweaks. Then drop that Delorean kit car package over it I am fully aware I do not have a Delorean or even a VW bug that will perform like one.
Hopefully I will have a reliable vehicle that I enjoy driving and to me looks great.
The DIY ideas I was trying to get assistance on will be a secondary backup system for the den. It will be A DIY analog front end, possibly a DIY tube amp, DIY cables and DIY fullrange speaker like a Voight pipe or an Open baffle.
So I am not trying to build a KRONOS, Oracle Delphi or other high end TT from scratch but rather build something that is reliable, gives me a sound that is good(to my ears) and looks stunning(to my eyes).
I'll give you credit for one thing. You have a knack for draining away someones enthusiasm.
Guess I'll head over to Walmart for a cheap Ion MP3 turntable, throw all my tunes on an MP3 player and be done with it.
I suppose I respond to posts as I see the attitude placed within them. You have a knack for rudeness and thinking everyone is dumber than you. You clearly feel your obfuscations should be perfectly clear to the underlings.
And your logic is specious indeed. I wasn't suggesting you serve your friends McDonalds rather than cook a meal. (LOL!) In cooking a meal, you begin with multiple raw parts which are not created to serve only as a component of the final product. An onion has no intent on being carmelized. Nor is it peculiar to any one dish or prep technique. A turntable platter is, what? A turntable platter. A drive pulley is a drive pulley just as a thrust bearing is nothing but a thrust bearing. It will never be, say, a part to a loudspeaker.
You go to McDonalds to get prepared food. It's done and served as is. You do not "refurbish" it any more than you refurbish a 1015 by dicing it rather than slicing it.
The connection of that example to a diy turntable is faulty if not evidence you do not fully comprehend diy. My apologies to your dinner guests.
There are more than a few web pages on diy tables. I am completely unclear why you couldn't find them on your own. Or why you might think one drive system is inherently superior to another. If you've been paying attention over the last forty years, you would have noticed the "trend" in high end consumer tables. You might even have seen that a talented designer can make a very good product from any drive system if they have the time, resources and cash to invest in their concepts.
What equipment you presently own has no bearing on the thinking behind your plans for ... "refurbishing" parts of thrift store bargains. You and I even have distinctly different ideas, it would seem, on what "refurbishing" means. But I do realize some folks believe they should garner respect simply because they own something. Therefore, the laundry list is de rigueur to ... impress the underlings. Some folks think they can reinvent the wheel by doing something the original designer didn't do. "Some folks" though seldom have the educational background or the resources to devote to experimentation and testing of multiple ideas rather than just assuming their first thought is, of course, perfect.
They dream up a project and then convince themselves the original designer missed all their wonderful advancements. Seldom works that way but, if they're happy, I don't argue with that sort of person. There's no point, they have convinced themselves of their superiority long before I arrived on the scene.
Whatever.
I've provided you several links to several possible sources of information. A thank you would have been nice but I've come to not expect that from some posters. If you'd been a bit more cordial, I would have provided more resources which would have been useful to you. I didn't see the point.
Can't say it's been a pleasure ... "discussing" this with you. All of this seems absolutely silly and far removed from my concept of true diy when for far less money you could have a pre-owned Rega which will outperform any of your ... repurposed thrift store models. Dress up a Planar 3 any way you like and chances are it will still be a better table/tonearm than any of the junk I see in the local thrift stores.
However, to each their own. Good luck with your projects. Hopefully, they will serve to keep you out of someone's hair ... for a while at least.
Well, I wasn't going to respond but felt if nobody else will tell you then I will and mention you are nothing but a pompous as s! I am surprised you even know the word cordial and I am certain you could never be such.
I have spent dozen of hours searching DIY sites and finally decided to ask questions seeking assistance.I came in with no diy experience and was asking for help from diyers who have tried similar projects.
Guess that spoils your theory that I think people are dumber them me. Someone who reaches out for advice is not someone who thinks of himself as superior but actually inferior on the subject at hand.
You however criticized another DIYer whose links YOU provided. The fellow in Hungary who made that DIY turntable http://diyaudioprojects.com/Phono/DIY-Turntable/ probably enjoyed himself while working on it and I imagine has pride in his finished project. Good for him!
You are the one with the superiority complex looking down on his creation and commenting "I think this is a silly thing to do to a perfectly good Dual 701."
I also mentioned that this was a first ever build and would be using thrift/used store buys for practise and to use economical materials so I could learn how to do things. That way as a beginner I would not be out much financially while learning/experimenting.
When comfortable I could use better parts for my final project and yes maybe even something from a thrift/used store as even they get bargains in. Who can say when an old Dual,Thorens, etc. whether in good shape or maybe mistreated (perfect unit to salvage parts from) shows up in the store or an online ad?
Never did I say I wanted to reinvent the wheel(or build the best ever TT). I just wanted to have some enjoyment trying a DIY project that satisfied MY criteria into what I enjoy both sonically and aesthetically.
Oh, as for your pre-owned Rega 3 scenario, why are there lots of sites where many different mods and tweaks such as upgraded platter, platter mats,sub-platter, silicone belts, dual pulleys, tonearm, cartridges etc. are tried and compared? Off the shelf as the designer made it is all one needs according to you.
I imagine you just consider all those people as "silly" and just wasting time, money and effort. Well, I would be one of them because (if I could afford a Rega) I would also try out some of the ideas and most definitely build a base more to what I find visually appealing!
Anyway, go ahead and continue to criticize. I for one will not be paying attention but will choose to stick to websites where people are pleasant and offer help whether someone is a newbie DIYer such as I or a more experienced DIYer comparing notes on projects more complex then I would care to try.
"Guess that spoils your theory that I think people are dumber them me."
Not at all, your protests only serve to more than adequately prove my point. Believe me, you are not the first bovine out of the shute in this rodeo.
Your other fault is wanting to have the last word.
I will say, though, your last post was the most descriptive of what you actually want to achieve. Maybe I just should have p****ed you off sooner instead of trying to drag information out of you.
As you go about whacking up a turntable, please, keep in mind; there is a point where "having fun" crosses over into insanity. I've seen it happen all too often.