I scored a Sansui P-D31 turntable at Goodwill for 12 bucks. It’s definitely a weird one! All of the controls work beautifully, spins great, consistent speed… however, the speed for both 33 and 45 is consistently slow, by about a second each. I read through the manual and there doesn’t appear to be a way to adjust the speed, and this thing looks to be entirely digitally controlled. It’s slow enough to be annoyingly noticeable. I’m no repair expert, but I opened it up and it looks pretty clean inside. It’s all boards and buttons. None of the usual big pots and mechanisms I’m used to where I could just clean the old grease, spray some deoxit and have it magically start working. In fact, the manual for this guy says NOT to lubricate it. Any ideas or help on this thing would be mega appreciated! I know this isn’t a super high end turntable, but it’s pretty cool and worth the $12 investment!
Sansui P-D31 (direct drive, servo) plays slow, any way to fix?
- Thread starter jromeo
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MeatPilot
New Member
Well I guess you're not completely alone. I just got this today with an entire Sansui Classique stack (amp, tape deck, tuner, tt) including Sasui floor speakers. All for only a whopping $10, garage sale/clean out. So I guess it cost $2? The whole thing looks like a teal spaceship from 1980.
Anyhow mine has an issue where the belt that controls the tonearm position is completely rotten. So I'll need to replace that first. But I did dig up the user manual at least.
Might want to start by tracing the 45
/33 speed toggle switch and dosing the connection in DeOxit to start. Realistically the motors on these could be completely ****. But doesn't hurt to fiddle.
Mine is completely disposable for what I paid. So I'm going to rip into the thing and report back if I have any good ideas.
MeatPilot
New Member
Well wasn't as hard to find the fine speed controls after all. Board attached to drive says "motor-contol". Give each of these a dab of DeOxit and wiggle them around. Might have to tweak to get the to right speed.
There are actually two out of place holes you can access these underneath without removing the entire bottom. VR1 (white) might be 33rpm adjust and VR2 (yellow) 45rpm or vice versa. Not sure what VR3 (yellow lower right) is for maybe pitch control for both? I can't test because I still need a belt to get it to engage at all.
Anyhow hope that helps!
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That’s what I thought but was too afraid to mess with them!!! I’ll give it a go, this is all the confirmation I need. Thank you!
Hey, thanks for the confirmation! That was 100% the adjustment needed, no deoxit even required. It’s rotating at PERFECT speed now. In case it’s helpful, yellow appeared to be 45 & white 33, just as you suspected.