A Fortunate Opportunity And Acquiring A Turntable I Don't Need

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Neonknight
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A Fortunate Opportunity And Acquiring A Turntable I Don't Need

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I was pretty well set with my two turntables, decided to keep my SP 10 with Riggle arm and my Serac, which happens to have a modded Rega on it for the moment. I would consider putting another arm on it, and just keep it as my casual table.

Then a friend sends me a Craigslist ad. There is a Denon DP 75, which is the US version of the DP 80 minus the pitch control. And it is mounted in a fairly rare VPI sprung plinth. Which happens to be an interpretation of the Cotter plinth for the big direct drive tables. The arm it comes with is a Acos GST 801, and a Fidelity Research MC 201 cartridge. I make a call, arrange a date, and go to pick it up.

I call the guy when getting close, and he tells me there is a problem with the arm. I go check the table out anyways, and agree on a reduced price that was very favorable. Some auxillary parts are missing on the arm, but it does play. i sent it out for evaluation and it looks like someone had issues with the magnetic VTF option. Now I was fortunate enough to find a NOS version of the arm in California, and am able to transfer some parts from the old arm to the new one to make it complete. Parts for the 801 are very difficult to find, so I feel fortunate to have a basically NOS arm for this table. The top plate of the VPI plinth is built of five layers of steel and damping material in between them. There is no arm board, and modifying it for a different length arm is problematic. The only arm I could find with the same mounting distance is a couple of Audio Technica ones.

I did trial the table with the old arm, and the initial results were very positive. I was able to statically balance the arm, and I used my Ortofon Cadenza Red as well as the Fidelity Research cartridge. The arm is a lovely bit of manufacturing, its as nice as I have seen from any high performance Japanese tone arm builder from this era. I am going to redo the spring assemblies on the VPI when I find the appropriate parts, but otherwise its ready to go. Here is a pic or two of it with the original GST 801 arm on it, it is missing the auxillary weight that is needed to play the heavy cartridges I prefer. But I got all the needed bits and pieces now to make the carm complete.

Anyways its a very nice table, and I think I will keep it for a good while.

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