Idler Drive Turntables

With the popularity of old Garrard, Thorens, EMT and Lenco idler drive turntables, I was wondering why no one is making a new, reasonably priced model. It seems the only current models being produced are the Loricraft ($13,000 - >$20,000), and the Shindo rebuilt 301 ($>20,000). If Garrard, Thorens, etc. could build thousands and thousands of reasonably priced idler drive tables forty -fifty years ago that, with a little TLC can compete favorably with the top tables of today, I'd think someone could make a sub $5K idler drive table in the here and now.

 

It's pretty simple.

Because with the rise in minimum wages, expected wages, health and safety standards, tooling costs, production costs, distribution costs, expected profits, etc... the cost would eventually be prohibitive.

Look at the construction of a Garrard 301/401 - all die cast aluminium, mechanical linkages, and that washing machine motor! The platter is also pretty darned heavy considering it's aluminum.

Or how about the old EMTs? The Model 927 had a main bearing spindle with a 2cm diameter! Two centimeters! Think about that for a second.

Now compare that to a Rega P3, which is a piece of float glass on a piece of MDF with a VCR motor and plastic pulleys. The P1 weighs about as much as my Garrard 401 platter.

They just don't make them like they used to anymore... And the worst thing is that they can't... for the same price.

FWIW, I don't think that Shindo moves many units a year - certainly not >100. Maybe not even >50. Certainly not for $20,000 at least - which probably mostly explains *why* it's priced at $20,000 in the first place.

I also have the distinct impression that while Loricraft do a brisk business in 301/401 restoration, they don't sell many 501s.

 

What Garrard 401 said.

By way of comparison, it's no accident that the two most recently designed direct-drive turntables cost upwards of 12 grand.

Leaving the question of a new design aside, I would bet that a copy of a classic idler drive could be made for under $5k in China.

 

A friend was getting rid of a Lenco L75 for a song and I snapped it up. Original tonearm and plinth will disappear. I expect it to become mighty competitive with my VPI Scout. Lots of work to do but by all accounts completely worthwhile!

 

Dual also manufactured some turntables with Idler drive.

 

Did Dual use an idler wheel set-up on the 1229?

 

Expect a lot of Low Frequency noise. Clever design, but not very suited to stereo.

I'd be adding something to the platter to make it heavier, and that would reduce the noise a bit - at the risk of more wear and burn out of the idler wheel and motor. BTW, the composite metal/rubber idlers aren't cheap. If you can rebuild the motor and the 'cone driver' to make them less vibration prone that'll help too.

just my .02.. but as a 301 owner who's had a few other idler drive tables I'll be back.

 

I'm presently working on a Rek-O-Kut B16H broadcast quality turntable (it's the model with the 16" platter). The quality is simply amazing and it looks as if it's built for many hours of use (everything is built heavy duty, and the motor is quite huge). I'm working on rebuilding it for a friend (it needed a base, so I built a simple one from surplus butcher block, courtesy of two old Kitchen Aid portable dishwashers - the turntable was originally installed in a countertop at a used record store, thus it had no base). I already cleaned up and lubed the tonearm so it passes the swing test. Idler wheels appear excellent, cleaned up and lubed spindles. All that's left to do is lube the motor and main spindle bearing, and it should be ready to use.

 

With my Scout, which sits upon a maple block, I got rid of just about all of the low frequency noise by placing it on top of bubble wrap! The whole thing acts like a sprung turntable. Unfortunately, the bubble wrap loses air and is not a long term solution, but as an experiment was very illuminating.

I have had idler drive turntables by Dual and Garrard, as well as other belt drive turntables from Thorens and Music Hall. It is all in the implementation. Evidently, the heart of the Lenco is the motor and the vertical orientation of the idler. There seems to be a worldwide cult of Lenco fans, and thus tons of information available on them. Apparently each model has manufacturing variables - some L75's have heavier platters than others, as well as different style idler wheels.

 

Yes, I believe they did.

 

Anyone remember Weathers turntables with their wooden tonearms and advanced (for that time, supposedly) idler-drive design?
They were tres groovy 'tables when my dad put his system together back in the '50s.
I grew up with them, but haven't heard one in about 20 years.

 

Any new production idler wheel turntables would compete in price and quality with the thousands of old ones sold on eBay.

 

Check the new Teres (www.teresaudio.com) for a new design, sorta idler wheel.

 

A bit OT, but given that 6moons has just released a "pre-release" article on the Lencos, there may be no more "cheap" idlers out there anymore.

- The TD124/224 has always been very expensive; due in no small part to its European good looks
- The Garrard 301s/401s are getting very expensive. Grease bearings go for silly money nowadays.
- The "right" ROKs are relatively rare and non-existent outside the USA
- The broadcast-model Commonwealth Electronics idler has shot up in price recently - from $200 to $1300! It's perhaps the best made idler of them all, but the most rare.

- The Lencos were once the last bastion of cheap-and-cheerful idler drives, no longer, I guess.

 

Now that looks fun. Not sure about it's power transfer, but I bet that motor is really quiet.

Anyone who's only played with 'commercial' type turntables, belt and direct drive, can't imagine the difference in power transfer you get with an idler.

I remember reading that the most efficient power transfer device is a chain, then gears, then the idler and way last is the poor 'springy' belt. Umm, direct drive works differently - sort of pushing the table round with opposing magnets. Very few have a lot of torque to speak of - the SP10 does.

The trade off is noise. All that direct coupling puts anything the motor or idler does into the platter, as rotational inaccuracies (wow and flutter) and noise/vibration. Build a better/smoother motor - that's now very expensive, taking skills in turning that are learned over tens of years. Put the motor at the end of a rubber band, and make the platter heavy and a lot of those problems go away, to be replaced with others.

 

Somewhere, recently, in some thread or other that veered onto idler vs. direct vs. belt drive, somebody posted a few messages about idlers and suggested that they can be much *quieter* than belt drive tables if mounted in the appropriate plinth. Don't remember the details, and feeling too lazy at the moment to dig it up, but out there to be found if you wish to pursue. The assertion definitely runs against every bit of conventional wisdom I've ever heard, but I certainly can't offer any proof that it's wrong....

As to why nobody is building idler tables as cheaply as Dual, Garrard, etc. did years ago, I think there's more to it than the "wages regulations etc. have risen" explanation, although that's doubtless part of it: Dual, Garrard, etc. sold jillions of the things, so they enjoyed significant economies of scale. The market for turntables today is, shall we say, not as robust as it was then, so the mfrs. that are left are fighting for a slice of a significantly smaller pie--more like a cupcake, really. Costs that are doubtless higher spread over fewer potential unit sales can mean only one thing for prices.

For our friend with the Lenco: you are wise to scrap the stock arm. Lenco tables had bar none the WORST tracking arms that I have ever encountered. They *look* like a good design, but in my experience they just don't work.

 

I tend to believe that a high-inertia platter is all that is needed in a consumer environment, but that would prevent "misterious" design features and make shipping a huge component of a TT cost.

Unless speed errors are way too large, they are undetectable. A high-inertia platter makes impossible to have sudden speed losses and gains. Yes, speed errors take much longer to correct but they are undetectable by the ear.

 

Great post!

Btw, I'm playing around with Rek-o-kut N34H. It's a belt drive with the Papst motor. That motor is smooth. Plan to use a string in place of the belt and bring the motor outboard.

 

Pretty darned close. In industrial applications, gears and chains offer the most direct type of coupling, as would cogged belts. V-belts are the most "lossy" of the bunch (slippage, stretching), but can operate at higher speeds. Gears are the most direct (think metal-to-metal direct contact), where a chain and cogged belts can stretch slightly during use (and especially at startup, which is also when they often break).

 

I used to sell typesetting equipment (sort of huge laser printers). In order to achieve excelent registration in color separations a bed in the machine has to move with extreme precision.

They used pulleys and a flat metal belt with significant tension applied. That would require two supports in the pulleys, at least on the motor side, perhaps less critical in the platter side.

 

I think this is the thought behind the use of videotape / mylar in some belt drive systems.

I think that basic motor noise is unjustly neglected in tt design. Linn and Rega have done some work in this area in the last 10 years but those motors don't purr anything like the TD124 / 301 motors do. Most designers tend to work around the problem (separate motor box like VPI and Teres, hydraulic drive like the Caliburns, springs and belts like Linn and Rega..).

 

The Premotec motors Rega uses are quiet and I've heard plenty to draw that conclusion from. The isolation issue is of course another story. AC motors in general are fairly noisy by nature of design compared to DC motors which are much quieter and smoother, no cogging.

 

Got my first idler drive today -- completely unexpected. I picked up a portable, battery-powered record player at the thrift shop for $15 (kinda expensive actually). It was some never-heard-of brand called Tenphonic -- made in japan. Probably early 60s. Typical portable, largely plastic but it came in a wood frame .. nice. So I got it home and opened it up. This little "toy" worked with an idler drive. A pretty nicely designed one, too. And in the guts, a nice looking little motor, the platter turned out to be really heavy and the bearing is really nice! The darn thing is well enough put together it'll spin for a half minute when thrown by hand. Crazy. What looked like a cheapie little toy actually turned out to be really well engineered. Tenphonic. Anyone ever heard of them? I need to put some pics up.

 

In the era of EMT idlers, they cost as much new as a BMW automobile then. They were no holds barred broadcast tanks made to anal standards for National and State Radios with cost was no object budgets then. Not cheap at any juncture. In 1992, the Broadcast Electronics/QRK 12-C was $299 sans tonearm. About $160 bought a broadcast tonearm of good quality, so $500 and change by the time you had a cartridge normally used on said combo.

 

Indeed.