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Has anyone ever heard or seen a Denon DP67L Direct Drive Turntable?
E.g How long ago were they made, were they any good etc?
Follow Ups:
Look at my system to see pic. The sound I get from it, using a Benz Micro L2 Wood, is very, very good. I respectfully disagree with some of the other inmates -- i think you can get excellent sound from the big heavy Denon DD units from this era. I know my setup compares well with a buddy who has a VPI/Grado setup.
Rob
I checked out the pics. Nice system, Skylab, and the TT is a thing of beauty.I especially like your neat CD/LP storage. Mine is a little more...er...random. ;-)
...so I keep them well organized, and she doesn't really notice the "growth"...
Rob
Hello three things
1 I own an SL1100A and it is a great table I have the stock arm, which I'm planning on upgrading in the future.
2 An 1100 with a Black widow arm just sold on ebay a week or so ago and it sold for $187.50 if memory serves me rite.
3 That does seem high even with an SME arm.
Good Luck in your choice.
Photo of this 67L courtesy of http://www.hifido.co.jp/, a very interesting website- you have to find the lttle button that says "English" is all...Listening now to my (identical) Denon DP-72L. I have several other large "Denon Professional" (DP) tables, they're kind of a hobby/obsession. There are a number of inmates using these fine vintage machines. They represent about the final step in evolution of the direct drive table and are capable of excellent performance and offer the enticement of reliable semi-automatic operation! They are very well-built and seem quite robust- One weak spot to look out for is the counterweight post on the back on the baring assembly tends to get bent downward easily; although it looks crappy, it will play that way forever, apparently.
Looking in the service manual for the "Denon DP57L/62L/67L/72L" (sic), these are all basically identical except for a few minor cosmetic differences and the power supply being 120V, 220/240V, or multi-voltage in the various models. There arm bases of the 67/72 are identical and slighly diferent from the 57/62 in cosmetics only. The arm bearing assemblies and all the electronics appear identical. The armtubes and counterweights should all interchange. Some production of the 67 model had a black finish arm, just cosmetics I believe. These tables were sold with both a low-mass straight armtube and a higher mass S-shape tube. They connect at the entry on the bearing housing. There are at least 2 different counteweight masses to accomodate various cartridge + arm weights. Hopefully you can get all these accessories.
Speed is set by a quartz frequeny generator running a big AC-synchronous motor, servo'ed to a signal developed from a tape-head reading a magnetic strip on the inner lip of the platter- very stable, totally analog (no "cogging" etc.) That's what makes these tables sound so fine.
The DP-67L arm is a "Dynamic ServoTracer" - these are marvels of electromechanical design- you have to take one apart to believe it! Tiny, perfectly balaned electromagntic servomotors correct VTF and anti-skate in real time. My DP-72 will play radically warped records without a hitch. The downside is that its a good possibilty you won't be able to repair one of these in practical terms. Also, their potential to deliver the best sound from a fine cart isn't the greatest, unfortunately. I run a vintage Walco ES-30 now in my DP-72 straight arm and it sounds very good, but I feel an expensive cart might be wasted. My big Denons with component arms are much better. Not complaining, the Servotracers truly don't sound bad...
Good luck with your Denon. Price sounds fair if it works well, there's no corrosion on the metal parts and the wood and dustcover are unscratched; its a plus if both armtubes and counterweights are there (no spares are available any longer from Denon)!
Take a look at this museum website and groove with the Golden Age of direct drive...
mr.bear wrote:
"their potential to deliver the best sound from a fine cart isn't the greatest, unfortunately."Agreed. I had a DP-60L for many years, and while it was lovely to look at (the nicest of all the Denon's, I think, with that icy green "on" light), it didn't bring the best sound out of the DL-103D, I don't believe. My current VPI Aries 2 with the exact same cartridge is worlds better (and worlds more expensive, of course).
I also wore out the set screw trying to adjust arm height to wriggle the best sound out of the cartridge and arm, to not much avail, really.
Mr Bear,
Can you recommend any particular cartridges.
I'm not too sure about the intricacies of low-mass vs high-mass tonearms etc.
I do have an old Clearaudio Aurum Alpha that came with an old SME tonearm but I don't know if this can operate on the low-mass Denon arm?
The potential of the Denon is limited but its quite good. I think it would work well with the Clearaudio- Clearaudio has no specs I could find for weight and compliance of the cartridge, but theoretically the servo controls on VTF in the Denon arm make the mass and compliance irrelevant, within the sevo's stability range (if I remember from my 'lumped parameters' class ca. 1974...)Neverthless, for the straight low-mass arm, a high compliance MM cart seems best suited. If you like the sound, a Grado or Shure are good choices. I have vintage Nagatron 360CE and Acutex M320-IIISTR carts that perform very well in it. I would love to try an ADC XLM-series in it, I think that would be a very good match. The Walco I am listening to right now performs very well and after a longish break-in sounds delightful: sweet mids, extended highs, non-fatiguing. You can still buy these NOS for $50. I would call it a giant-killer.
Th performance of this vintage unit seems to be discounted here, it shouldn't be. It offers many of the advantages the state-of-the-art Direct Drive turntable at prices you can afford. Sound of good record playback hasn;lt otten dramatically beyyer since 1980 IMHO. I played the same string bass every day then as I do tody and I think the Denon sounded lively and natural compared to live music, then and now!
At the time Denon was applying millions of dollars of research money annually to phono reproducton and the resulting designs are delightfully complex and perform well. I doubt that the total of research funds into vinyl playback in the decade 1990-2000 for the entire industry equals the budget for Denon + Matsuishta for one year in the "Golden Age," say around 1979! Their gear is designed well and made beautifully as testfied to by its functionality after 25 years.
As a class, DD's do some things diferently, some much better, than belt drives. Their speed is extremely stable under dynamic stresses (varying stylus drag force) resulting in good preservation of timing cues giving a big solid soundstage and excellent PRaT. I don't do belts. Different aspects of turntable performance acquire different weighting factors for different folks. May your path be as pleasant.
Mr Bear and I are birds of a feather on this one. As he so well put it "I don't do belts". I think that a big DD Denon, which can be had for $300-500, can provide FAR more musical enjoyement than an equivalently priced new belt drive deck from Music Hall or Sumiko. You have to spend more to get a belt drive deck that sounds better.I would stay away from the DP45F, 51F, 52F, or 47F, though. While they are very well made, their tonearms are very difficult to deal with when installing new cartridges, and while I ADORE end of record auto-lift, I don't much care for fully automatic tables. They don't lend themselves to all the record and stylus cleaning I like to do :-}
Rob
Hi Mr.Bear,
Yup, that's the one and many thanks for all that info.
I'm amazed that a forummer is actually using one of these.The guy actually has two of these Denons (plus a Micro Seike.
One is a Denon DP57L and the DP67L. They both look absolutely immaculate .... as if they've just been taken out of the box. He's got some source in Japan for finding this old stuff. I have asked him to try and find me a Trio L07D as well. I always regretted not buying one of these years ago when they were in the shops.I'm looking forward to getting the Denon down here to have a play with it. As long as it works OK it's so cheap I'll buy it just for fun. The other real turntables I'm looking at cost around USD4,000.
I don't know anything about this TT specifically, but Denon direct Ddives are usually highly regarded as being some of the best direct drives, right up there with the high end Technics offerings (SP-10, SP-15, SP-25). The Denons are built like tanks, have very high accuracy, extremely low Wow & Flutter, and this one has one of their strange, but no-to-bad ServoTracer tonearms. They will track warps very well. They're also beautiful. Will get you very good sound. Probably won't compete with the $1000+ crowd, but not bad at all.
IBSmiester
Open Your Ears....
Many thanks for the feedback guys.
I have a friend here who has one he wants to sell for $250. He's going to let me have it for a week or so to try out. So no harm in that.
I downloaded the manual from this site but it doesn't give any indication of when they were made but it looks like it's brand new and just out of the box???? I'd love to know what era they are from.It's quite compact but it weighs 33lb. It'll be interesting.
These are from the mid 80's most likely, and all made in Japan. I myself use the much cheaper/simpler DP-45F, and it's a good table as well. Not as robust as the one your talking about, but good nonetheless.
IBSmiester
Open Your Ears....
No experience, but you can get a manual free at the link below.
Try another search with DP-...
Dave
Part of the problem finding information on Japanese tables is they generally had such a profusion of different models, many variations on a central theme.
You might want to dig around and or post a question on vintage audio.
Regards Fredj
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