Still have mine from 1979. The rca cable can be replaced with the board attached. I just purchased a 2nd one on reverb.com. But my 1st one is branded as a D1. But in the D2 configuration. Workhorse of a table.

Cat chewed my rca cable but replaced with a new mogami with pcb attached. Never had a problem with it since 1979.

Demolition St-Jerome

Demolition St-Jerome

Just bought this turntable refurbished from Lost in The Groove record store in Mount Vernon Washington. Recalibrated speed control, lubricated interior and he added a Brand new Audio-Teknika stylus/needle. The thing sounds amazing. Way better than our more modern Gemini turntable which we are now selling.

Only weakness I can see is the RCA and ground chords are wired directly into the unit. They do not unplug and cannot be replaced by upgraded RCA audio jacks. And if anything goes wrong with those wires it’s going to need a RCA jack board. But why is built into the device is how they did it back in the day (vintage 1980) I suppose.

Apart from the cables it is totaly reliable. Good tone arm. Good resistance to feedback.

custom stickers | print stickers | business printing | printing company

Probably the cheapest decent turntable readily available; dead accurate speed; robust build

Needs the cheap tweak of adding 5 lbs of plasticine (about $10 worth) to sound it's best (check out the audiokarma thread); tonearm is decent but not as good as a Rega RB300 or even a Thorens TP16 (But these vintage arms go for several times the money you can get the whole D2 for)

I found this turntable in the dumpster. Yes, a fully working unit with cartridge. Best money I've ever spent. People just don't really understand how good these are for how available they seem. If you can get one in good condition for under 100, you're golden

This is the third D2 turntable I've owned. Each time I end up selling it in hopes for something better in a budget turntable, and each time I buy another D2 because there is no better turntable for the used price they can be attained at. Thankfully there are plenty of them out there to buy another one. The are good enough to spend the extra money on a good cartridge. Enough said.

Picked this D2 up on the Bay for $79 with an inexpensive Shure cart included. Arrived this morning via USPS surpisingly intact (the seller had the presence of mind to remove the platter and wrap it separately).
Took it out of the box, switched the cart to an Ortofon om5e (also inexpensive), unplugged my PL-518 and was very impressed.

My Pioneer was refurbished a year or so back and has performed very well for such an old table, but I have to say this D2 flat blew it out of the water. It may just be the luck of the draw, but I also own an SL-1700 (which I've yet to compare to the D2) and I'm officially sold on the old Technics tables. For the money (paid $100 for the 1700 a few months ago- also on EB) I think they're very hard to beat.

Plan to pass the 518 along to my son- never thought I'd be saying that.

The Technics SLD2 is a very nice turntable for ripping vinyl. I also have a very nice Project table with an Oyster Blue Point cart, but it takes so much time to change and balance cartridges that a simple direct drive with changeable cartridges for archival purposes was in order. It's easy to change head shell cartridges, balance and set anti-skate on this table.

For the older Technics I now have three head shells and three carts for various needs. A Shure M92E eliptical for all around normal LP playing, a Shure SC35 for those old records that need to be tracked deep, and a another Oyster with a conical, for ok to fair disks.

The Blue Point stays on the big Project turntable with the speed box in the main living room set up.

Other than no quart lock for the speed control, I like the table. I had an SL1200 but traded it for part of a payment on other gear. I replaced it with a Pioneer belt drive, but when I saw this little unit, I went back to direct drive - because pitch control is very helpful when working in restoration.

Rumble on a virgin disk is about 65 db down - very good since LP's have no more than a 40 db dynamic range. Belt drive players are about 60 db down.

I have made some modifications:

First replaced the ground wire and the RCA interconnects with better "wire."

I have not modified the plinth, but have the tables feet on a piece of ceramic tile and then on 1" foam on my work space. My wife made a nice vinyl cloth cover as the clear plastic piece was shot.

So sonically it is very good, an in fact comparing my Project RPM 61.1 same record to the Technics, it's very close. I like the brightness of the Shure cartridge over the Blue Point! A $60 cart that sounds as good as a $600 unit.

Anyway my Preamp is the Emotiva USP1 in the den, which is hooked up to my PC. I use a simple Berhringer USB audio interface into my WinXP PC and Adobe Audition for sound recording and editing.

Cheers!

good for the price
great sound, even better with a good cartridge
sure its plastic, but remember the ones around today are over 30 years old and have held up
honestly, what can you buy today that will last 30 years? nothing....

so enjoy, if you find one at a reasonable price, buy one