Denon tone arm rebuild

bikerboy

Hi,
I have been playing vinyl so much lately I havent got around to posting pics. I have had this denon dp 72l for a couple of decades. When I bought it at the stereo shop I worked at our repair tech said nice base-crappy arm. Well I always liked it but never felt the bass response was very good. A couple years ago the pivots came loose and while I was trying to fix that I broke a hair sized wire that controls the antiskate electronics. So armed with the knowledge of the internet I tore the removable wand, wires and headshell off of my loved TT. I also removed all of the electronic controls for antiskate, Qdamping, auto lift,and anything that was attached to the arm while in play. I was able to save the manual lifter. I used fiberglass kite struts (one tube inside another) and grafted the headshell to the arm. I drilled out the wand reciever and glued the arm to the base. The rubber mounted counter weight is now metal on metal. No 20 yr old rubber bushing. So now the arm is one solid piece. No quick release headshell or wand or rubber bushing. I used 4' of cardas wire from cartridge to head amp. I played it for a couple weeks and now am trying rope caulk to see it any resonances in the arm can be tuned out. It sounds great. I am getting a bit of hum when I touch the wires with the gain very high but at normal playing levels it is minor. I have always had to deal with that using a low output MC. Now I hear a bit of motor/ speed control noise but what can I expect for a 20 yr old table. It sure was worth the $30 in parts and 5-10 hours work it fix it. Cant wait for The Clamp from Hearingimpaired.
By the way welbourne labs can be real pain to deal with. Backorders, no responses to emails, ect. Not recommended.
Back to the licorice pizza.

MillerLiteScott

Nice work. Love The Replacements LP.

bikerboy

I dont know how this got posted here. I thought I was adding it to the end of another post. Oh well. The denon is working well with the Soundsmith rebuilt DL-103r. The cartridge sounds like a completely different animal as it should. The diamond is now a line contact and has a ruby crystal for a cantilever. Vocals are more clear and open. Imaging and bass are very good. Need to get different 12ax7 tubes for the Van Alstine T-5 to see what changes can be made there. I have a pair of EH and a pair of JJ and thats it. As is it sounds great and I will probably leave things as they are for the summer. Need to ride the mtn bike more.

bikerboy

Heres a pic of all the stuff that I removed from the denon tt. Many of the aluminum plates were attached to the tone arm pivot to allow for auto lift at the end of the lp. Other parts were used to servo control the arm. The TT has to sound better without all that crap attached to the arm. The Replacements were great, along with the Clash, the Cure, Captain Beefheart, and lots more of the lps I still have from the beginning of my audio journey. Thats the real motivation behind keeping and modifying the denon. Its the only piece left from the early days for me. That and it sounds good. Anybody need a headshell and wand for a DL-72?

PatMatt

Is the headshell and armwand still available?