A battle of D/Ds: Heavily-modified SL-1210 vs. Kenwood L-07D and Nakamichi TX-1000.

Hi Paul,

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I use a Dynavector DV505 on my Nakamichi TX-1000, with a Denon DL103r and have found the sound to be suitably musical, although I did use an SME 312 for a while and experienced results similar to those described by Marco - IIRC, Dave had a higher spec SME - was it a 312S, Marco?

Yup, it was a 312S. Still rather too 'conservative' sounding, though, not to mention stupidly overpriced, unless you're an SME fanboy, or you buy it simply to marvel at the engineering quality!

For me, that's a no-no, as any part of my T/T, first and foremost, must act as the best performing musical tool for the job. I don't do 'hi-fi jewellery'...

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You certainly need to work at things with the Nakamichi, but really superb results can be had. I recently purchased a Jools Holland album (with his R&B orchestra) and side B is pressed sufficiently off piste, that it comes close to spoiling the music, such is the manifest wow. However, on the Nak this is not an issue, as the table corrects this 'friday afternoon' pressing, making it completely listenable.

That's undoubtedly impressive, and no doubt sometimes useful, but one wonders what the knock-on effect is, sonically, as a result of the added complexity? I'm afraid that, when it comes to audio design, I'm one of those 'keep it simple, stupid' kind of chaps: let's have the least amount of parts used as possible, but of the highest quality. However, most importantly, in a musical sense, everything must work together symbiotically - that's my philosophy! :exactly:

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It would be interesting to know if Dave has persevered with his Nakamichi, or moved it on...with a £25k Systemdek to play with, I suspect the Nakamichi may be on borrowed time!

Dave's still got his Nak, and favours it to the L-07D, but I think he considers the Systemdek his best T/T. Last time I had a listen, it was gob-smackingly good, and without doubt the best belt-drive T/T I've ever heard, exhibiting none of the common flaws of belt-drives - quite something else!! :eek:

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Look forward to the conclusion, Marco.

No worries, matey. All will be revealed in due course. We must have a sesh ourselves soon. I'm going to be doing the rounds this year, as there are loads of people who want to visit me, or want me to go to their place, so we should book something into our respective diaries! :cool:

Marco.

Hi Marco,

I think you've hit the nail on the head with the Nak - I do wonder whether the platter construction was/is a limiting factor...the 'bit' that moves is the uppermost glass sheet and this has often been identified as a limiting factor in the sound. Don't know why Nak chose glass over other materials, but the fact they offered a mat to place above this sheet is often cited as an admission that the 'stock' sound suffered with the glass.

Some folk have removed the glass platter, replacing it with Cu 180 mats from Micro Seiki - this has been found (in their experience) to add weight to the music, fleshing it out into something altogether more musical! :)

As for design philosophy - totally agree with you

We must get something into the diary - it would be good for me to have the Onkyo PX-100M back together (long story, for another post :eek:), so we'll have plenty to experiment with! :)

Best Wishes

Hi Paul,

You have a PM! :)

Marco.