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Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2004
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Quote:
A rarity indeed and this arm technology on the Denon DP-100M was most likely JVC derived, as the two companies worked together on this kind of thing. I'm not sure if it was Sony who got there first but the original Biotracer was released in 1978 several years before these Denon or JVC offerings.
Read about it here
I have had a few of these kind of decks and they are indeed an engineering tour de force, but my point was more to do with what seemed to happen to Japanese kit in general in the early '80s, which was I think more to do with the macro economic situation at the time than anything else.
You can compare products from companies as diverse as Sony and Nakamichi and see a definite trend towards cheaper build quality, probably because of the growing strength of the Yen making it more expensive to export at a profit, a thing which happens to all developing economies.
This coincided with the major breakthroughs in ICs in these years and therefore you see a lot of advancing electronic control circuitry boosting specs at the same time as mechanical engineering quality is being squeezed down for reasons of cost of manufacture.
It's most obvious in cassette decks, which of course were the dominant music source of the mid '80s. Many Nakamichi afficionados for instance rate the earlier 1000 or 700 series over more famous later decks like the Dragon, because they are simply better made and less prone to breakdown, even though they arn't quite as good on paper.
Quote:
Your JVC is from 1980 BTW so should be from just before the rot set in. As far as sounding muffled is concerned this could just be the sound of a vintage cart being more rolled off in the highs than you are used to from digital, or it could be something not quite right in the arm, or indeed in the phono stage.
The Grundig "Fine Arts" series were pretty high-end so lets assume its the cart. I would get an Audio Technica AT95E which is a very good basic MM cart (that certainly doesn't sound rolled off) for about 50USD or less and see how you get on with that. Or for 80 dollars you could have the AT440MLA which has the added benfit of a slightly stiffer suspension thus potentially working on a Technics. You can easily sell the Grado with the new stylus as they are quite popular vintage carts for people who are after that sort of sound.
One thing though, have you asked your parents if it sounds the same as it used to? It's hard to know what sounds wrong with turntables sometimes, without experience of how things ought to sound, as there are so many variables.
| Originally Posted by searchenabler /img/forum/go_quote.gif I have no idea of the Yamaha's capabilities. It may very well be a mere marketing gimmick on the Yamaha, but it clearly appears to be a superbly engineered solution on the Denon model I specified. Denon also had an extremely high cost table using this type of arm; it was specifically designed/targeted for professional use; broadcasting, archiving, etc.. It was the DP-100M. |
A rarity indeed and this arm technology on the Denon DP-100M was most likely JVC derived, as the two companies worked together on this kind of thing. I'm not sure if it was Sony who got there first but the original Biotracer was released in 1978 several years before these Denon or JVC offerings.
Read about it here
I have had a few of these kind of decks and they are indeed an engineering tour de force, but my point was more to do with what seemed to happen to Japanese kit in general in the early '80s, which was I think more to do with the macro economic situation at the time than anything else.
You can compare products from companies as diverse as Sony and Nakamichi and see a definite trend towards cheaper build quality, probably because of the growing strength of the Yen making it more expensive to export at a profit, a thing which happens to all developing economies.
This coincided with the major breakthroughs in ICs in these years and therefore you see a lot of advancing electronic control circuitry boosting specs at the same time as mechanical engineering quality is being squeezed down for reasons of cost of manufacture.
It's most obvious in cassette decks, which of course were the dominant music source of the mid '80s. Many Nakamichi afficionados for instance rate the earlier 1000 or 700 series over more famous later decks like the Dragon, because they are simply better made and less prone to breakdown, even though they arn't quite as good on paper.
Quote:
| Originally Posted by Kn0x As for sticking to the grado, well... Right now, the table sounds a little muffled to me... Any advice about that? |
Your JVC is from 1980 BTW so should be from just before the rot set in. As far as sounding muffled is concerned this could just be the sound of a vintage cart being more rolled off in the highs than you are used to from digital, or it could be something not quite right in the arm, or indeed in the phono stage.
The Grundig "Fine Arts" series were pretty high-end so lets assume its the cart. I would get an Audio Technica AT95E which is a very good basic MM cart (that certainly doesn't sound rolled off) for about 50USD or less and see how you get on with that. Or for 80 dollars you could have the AT440MLA which has the added benfit of a slightly stiffer suspension thus potentially working on a Technics. You can easily sell the Grado with the new stylus as they are quite popular vintage carts for people who are after that sort of sound.
One thing though, have you asked your parents if it sounds the same as it used to? It's hard to know what sounds wrong with turntables sometimes, without experience of how things ought to sound, as there are so many variables.
