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Why no affordable direct drives like in the 80's?

K

Kbobb

Member
I was listening to my old Technics direct drive, quartz controlled semi - auto turntable last night (whihch sounds very good to me) and wondered why there aren't any affordable tables similar to this being produced. They seem to be relatively desireable on the used market, the technology is there and I paid about $89 in the early 80's so with inflation these should be able to be produced for around $300 or so.

Given their popularity and longetivity I wonder why we don't see new ones being produced currently.

I do like that it turns off at the end of an LP when I'm too busy to attend to it rihgt away (or fall asleep).

Any thoughts?
 
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Because it's not cheap to manufacture regardless of what your table might have cost in the 80s.

In the 80s they were able to spread cost over volume of units sold, soimething they can't do today.
 
When Technics stopped making the SL 1210's in 2010 ... they listed the exert statement below as part of their reason ...

In addition, the number of component suppliers serving the analogue market has dwindled in recent years and we brought forward the decision to leave the market rather than risk being unable to fulfil future orders because of a lack of parts.
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They also listed the following statement (below) ... which I personally believe was the real reason ... no company wants an increasing share of a perceived declining market. Think of the quote from the movie "Other Peoples Money" ... "I'll bet the last company to make buggy whips, made the best damn buggy whips you ever seen".

We are sure that retailers and consumers will understand that our product range has to reflect the accelerating transformation of the entire audio market from analogue to digital.
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technics-sl-1210-mk5-direktantrieb-dj-wiedergabegeraet.png


Purchased my SL 1210 M5 brand new in 2005 from KAB ... love the TT. :thmbsp:
 
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Because there is no market for them, imho. Hanpin has some nice units, but they are more suitable for DJs than home hifi. And the technical numbers (wow, flutter, rumble) are not even near a mid-80ths mid-range player.

The endlessly repeated assertion that belt-driven DDs are superior to any other technology has done the rest.
BTW:
I know someone who built here in germany a DD-turntable like the Duals from the 80s, with those flat EDS910. With brush-less commutation, hall sensors and all that stuff you need for a smooth motor run. He priced them for 7000€ - he had to build it from scratch, layout, the tooling for the machines, and so on.
Guess how many he sold...
 
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Condorsat said:
When Technics stopped making the SL 1210's in 2010 ... they listed the exert statement below as part of their reason ...

"In addition, the number of component suppliers serving the analogue market has dwindled in recent years and we brought forward the decision to leave the market rather than risk being unable to fulfil future orders because of a lack of parts." ...
Click to expand...

I see this as an excuse rather than a reason. Panasonic was very much a vertically integrated company in 2010, so most of the parts that went into their direct-drive turntables were made in-house by one of the company's own divisions.

The technology certainly exists to make affordable direct-drive turntables. The engineering costs were amortized many years ago and the proprietary IC designs are filed away in company archives at Panasonic and other Japanese consumer electronics companies. The part of the puzzle that's missing is volume; there aren't enough potential customers out there to justify putting an inexpensive DD turntable back into production, so it doesn't happen. The old tools are gone or worn out and amortizing the cost of new tools over today's small volumes would push the unit price out of the affordable range. Those of us who still want to spin LPs have the choice of buying vintage, settling for a performance-compromised new turntable that's affordable, or paying the price for high-end goods.
 
The reason behind the reason that Technics gave is that the sales volume is a small fraction of what it was in the 1980s. Widgits must be made in vast quantities to get to low unit prices. Products get into a death spiral when sales drop, unit costs must go up, which further depresses sales....

Which, on edit, I see is just what Dr. T. said in the last part of his message. I scanned too fast.
 
My late 70's/early 80's DD (technics) became my RCM platter; a job it was much better at performing.
 
As has been mentioned, there are several cheap DDs around. In some ways it's dead technology in that the same effect can be produced much more cheaply with belt drive.
 
The Pioneer PLX-1000 is current production, it is $700. That's what it costs to make a distribute a decent-quality DD turntable nowadays.
 
I seen a Stanton Direct Drive TT the last time I visited an audio store last summer. Believe they are still in production ... they wanted $500ish for it as I recall.

Edit ... looks like they are going for around $600 now. (just browsed the net)
 
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Belt drives are much cheaper to manufacture. And can be manufactured easier with fewer barriers to entry. As manufacturers can buy the parts from various vendors or manufacture them in house reasonably. DD of high quality is much more expensive tooling, engineering, and fabrication of application specific IC chips just to name some of the reasons for their cost.
 
IMO if you want a quality direct drive turntable you can get it, and when inflation and reduced demand are taken into account you can get it for a reasonable price. The Pioneer PLX 1000 is VERY well reviewed and doesn't look like a toy like some of the ION and other "entry level" tables that are available. They can be had for around $650.

pnr-plx115.png


http://www.cnet.com/news/pioneer-plx-1000-a-dj-turntable-an-audiophile-can-love/

Stereophile also gave it a glowing review.
 
vinyl1 said:
The Pioneer PLX-1000 is current production, it is $700. That's what it costs to make a distribute a decent-quality DD turntable nowadays.
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Not really. It probably uses the same internal parts as other Hanpin TTs such as the AT1240, which is $300 cheaper. It just doesn't have the Pioneer name on it.:scratch2:
 
There won´t be any lack of good used 1200IIs for many years to come. Mine is more than 30 years old and is like new, and if one part someday would give up I would just buy a new one, so......

As for contemporary low cost DDs, they are all Hanpins.
 
I could design a belt drive simple turntable, get a machine shop to manufacture my platters and metal items, get a woodworking shop to manufacture my plinths, buy a motor system from another vendor, and a tonearm from another vendor. And assemble this from those items in a garage or kitchen table. Some manufacturers of high end belt drive turntables began that way. I would bet there are easily 6-20 AK turntable forum members who could make a good to superb turntable this way as a small volume item. And it is doable. There are multiple sources for what you need all over the world.

Hanpin in China is really about the only manufacturer today of budget friendly items for doing a DD turntable or making it to your wishes with what they have available. Until you get into designed from the ground up, many thousands of dollars DD very high end like the VPI DD turntable. Designing a DD, tooling up for manufacturing one from scratch, and designing and fabricating the control electronics, is a severely expensive undertaking. Even many a major Asian electronics firm would still have to charge high prices for it at today's economies of scale. As they don't have the sales volume in the 1970's and 1980's as they do today to amortize that cost over high production runs in manufacture and sales volume. I hope this explains the hows and whys of this question.
 
thanks

Thanks for the quick and thoughtful replies.
Can't argue with the expected sales volume figures - seems most people today listen to music on iPod earbuds or computers.
However I don't think there would be any real "design" costs - the designs were done 30+ yrs ago - just use those - they are good designs 'cause the gear is still reliably working many years later.
Just the production costs I guess.

It is amazing when 20 yr olds listen to vinyl on some old Advent speakers instead of earbuds- the ones that care about music certainly seem to appreciate the difference.

Thanks to this forum I am enjoying my old gear while learning about the new stuff that's out there.
 
Kbobb said:
Thanks for the quick and thoughtful replies.
Can't argue with the expected sales volume figures - seems most people today listen to music on iPod earbuds or computers.
However I don't think there would be any real "design" costs - the designs were done 30+ yrs ago - just use those - they are good designs 'cause the gear is still reliably working many years later.
Just the production costs I guess.

It is amazing when 20 yr olds listen to vinyl on some old Advent speakers instead of earbuds- the ones that care about music certainly seem to appreciate the difference.

Thanks to this forum I am enjoying my old gear while learning about the new stuff that's out there.
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I don´t think personally that it´s that easy. Much has to be redesigned and new tools have to be made. The same at suppliers. It will, in principle be the same as designing a new TT, as I see it.
 
botrytis said:
There is problems speed variance with DD TT and that is known problem. Many of the higher end DD use very unique circuits to deal with this problem. Also, many suffer from vibration from the motors being direct connected to the spindle.
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I have not seen this speed problem, and motors are not connected to the spindle, have You seen one that is?
 
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I have several DD TT and do not have any speed problems with them along with a PL-41D that I rebuilt that seems pretty stable. A good quartz locked DD TT should run circles around an idler or belt drive TT spec wise. As a matter of fact, I see far more post on here with speed problems with belt drive and idler drive TT than I see with a good quality quartz locked DD TT.

BillWojo
 
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