Timestep psu for the SL1200

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Originally Posted by Marco

Great stuff, Richard. It's really a joy to hear you saying that given, as you say, how close you were to selling it... :)

In my experience the quality of the PSU in any piece of hi-fi equipment is fundamentally the most important thing - everything else follows on from that.

It's interesting though how well the Dorian seems to be performing in the stock arm. I thought this was up at Johnnie's being 'pimped' or have you changed your mind on that one? :smoking:

Marco.

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Marco - I haven't sent the arm up to Johnnie yet as I really haven't had a lot of time to un-bolt it again. I must get round to it as I'd like to have it back for the show. Yup - a 500 quid needle in a 'throw-away arm'. Shurely shome mishtake :D

I'm not 100% sure I'm taking the Pioneer yet, simply because I think its regulator board might need re-capping. It could be down to our shite mains down here but if I run the power amps hard (as I was doing on saturday when a couple of mates popped round for a listen) the turntable's speed tends to wander. Running a light load on the mains and it's fine after it's settled down - takes approx 2 mins of running to settle, after which I leave it turning.

Talking to a mate of mine (who installs studio mixing desks so knows his way around electronics) he just reckons the caps on the regulator board need replacing as the board is struggling to deliver a constant current to the motor circuit. He's going to have a look at it but is snowed under with work at the moment. I'll be gutted if it doesn't go to the show - it might even put a few multi-£££k turntable owners' noses out of joint (not that that's reason to take it...oh no...honest...really) ;) Still the Tecchy's a superb back-up and if it creates some interest in the Time Step I'll be happy for Dave as it's a cracking product he's got here. Shame it's not possible to do a 'with/without' dem on the psu as its effect on the std turntable is uncanny...putting it mildly. :)

Ditto the PSU thing - every single component I've owned has benefited from better supply. I think the biggest surprise I ever had was going from a DualVI supply (into an Exposure XI pre) then getting the full-blown IX PMS. Amazing - it seems not all 24v DC are created equal. :D As John Farlowe said - an amplifier is 80% power supply, 20% amplifier. Jeez I often miss that Exposure rig. Bloody fool to sell it - it'd be worth double what I sold it for now. :(

Do you have the Pioneer service manual? I could re-work it in 3 hours?

Dave

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Originally Posted by Dave Cawley

Do you have the Pioneer service manual? I could re-work it in 3 hours?

Dave

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Hi Dave - thanks for the kind offer to have a look at the turntable. I don't have the service manual unfortunately, and VinylEngine only has the instruction manual which doesn't contain any schematics.

I'm going to get the psu caps changed to start with anyway, and we'll see how things go from there.

Hi Richard

OK, but changing things at random, without looking to see if everything is truly functioning as it should, is risky. Also you will never know if it is working properly, for example most SP-10's are faulty and do not work to their original speciation. Imagine a car never serviced for 25 years, how well would it go? But without the manual you are stuck, have you trawled the net and eBay ?

Regards

Dave

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Originally Posted by Dave Cawley

Also you will never know if it is working properly, for example most SP-10's are faulty and do not work to their original speciation.

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Wow, that is a pretty sweeping statement, can you qualify it? I'm looking to start off my vinyl journey with a good (if not new) example of the SL-1200 or 1210 and would also consider buying an SP-10 if the price was right. Now you have me worried if I should bother looking at all.

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OK, but changing things at random, without looking to see if everything is truly functioning as it should, is risky. Also you will never know if it is working properly, for example most SP-10's are faulty and do not work to their original speciation. Imagine a car never serviced for 25 years, how well would it go?

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Indeed!

That's a very interesting post, Dave, and confirms what I've always suspected of about 95% of SP10s on the market, and that is none of them will be performing optimally because of their age!

If I had any lingering thoughts about buying an SP10 in the future they've all now but evaporated.

Of course, from what you're saying, you have the necessary information and are in a position to fix most things and service them, I would presume, but until you examine the respective units the owners won't know just how badly their SP10s have drifted from original specification, how much it will cost to return them thus, and indeed whether they've bought a total 'pig in a poke' that's beyond rescue in the first place...

Forget it - way too risky!!

The message quite clearly is to buy a nice new SL-1200 or 1210 and send it to you to be fully modified, including fitting a new high quality arm, which will then result in you getting 95% (your figures) of the performance of an optimally performing SP10 but in a nice new, shiny, 100% reliable package - job done :cool:

It's simply not worth all the headache and grief for gaining a (possible) extra 5% of performance.

Marco.

Guys

I'm in a lucky position, here is one corner of my lab www.soundhifi.com/test.html . I have original service manuals for all the variants of SP-10's and even an original sales brochure. I have spent days assimilating all that makes an SP-10 what it is. I have refurbished about 5 SP-10's so far, and every one was not performing as intended. But I would not expect that of 'any' 25 year old electronic turntable.

My fees for refurbishment are here www.SP-10MKII.com and I guarantee my work. Also, we don't advertise, but we sell fully re-worked and guaranteed SP-10's, but they are way more than eBay prices!

Dave

Now there's a service and a half!

I'll create a dedicated area of the forum for the above, copy and paste it in there, and make it a sticky to act as a reference for all our members and guests :)

Marco.

Oh well no answer to my question just a load of blatant self advertising and cynicism. Sad to see. I'm young and probably naive. Just starting out on my audio odyssey it would be nice for those older and wiser to give encouragement to us young 'uns. Far be it for me to offer advice but I'll pose my final question: Forget all this bull about which piece of equipment is better and who does it better. What's wrong with just listening to and enjoying the music?

Sorry, Ritch, I'm not with you. Dave can not only supply new 1200 or 1210s, but also service SP10s and sell fully refurbished examples of SP10s.

In what way does this not cover your question? :scratch:

We're here to help so let us know what info you need and we'll do our best to assist :)

Marco.