Toshiba SR-370 DD Turntable

[NealG]

A mate has just lent me a sick (looks like somebody has all over it ) SR-370 to play with. Has a broken SME3009 but may take the Rega and is going to need some cleaning! Anybody know if these are any good? Weighs a lot more than the SL120...

[James D]

Hi Neal,

It'a a good deck roughly equivalent to an Technics SP 10 Mk1. 1975 era weighs 15Kg as you have discovered :-). Needs proper support and a unipivot arm to sound at it's best. The Rega really will not suit it at all. Strip the 3009 and sell the bits seperately on ebay then hunt for an inexpensive unipivot with the money

Typically sells for about £75 as people in UK think Toshiba are cheap, the Germans know about it though.

Known as the Aurex SR 370 in Japan.

Nice find if it works...

James

[NealG]

Thanks James,

I'll try the Rega anyhow as it's all I have 'free' at the moment. I'll start another thread re Unipivot's.

Deck works fine, cleaned most of the mess of it and its very speed stable, so far so good!

[NealG]

Yuck! Your'e right James, deck does not like the Rega. Sound is dull as ditch water with a one note boomy bass. Either that or the deck is not up to scratch to start with.

[James D]

Hi Neal,

That's what I feared looking at the deck construction. It's close to a 401 on a fixed plinth so the same approach needs taking to get it to work and, unfortunately the Rega is about the worst arm for such a deck....

The system set up should be decoupled arm base from plinth - think SME 3012/3009 with decoupling of the arm base at the four fixing points - or, even better, a unipivot such as the Mayware, Morch, Morsiani, Hadcock, Schoeder,etc. Actually this is the perfrct deck to make your own unipivot fot. They are straightforward to make using anything from a kniting needle to a gramaphone needle as the pivot.

The other thing it needs is a support that decouples it from the floor or wall at subsonic frequencies. |Something like Jonathan Noble's ball bearings in a cup work really well for this (As he says this is earthquake resistance technology so proven in the field...)

WIth both of these it will give the Lenco a run for it's money - it won't have quite the 'life' of the Lenco but will have more extension and transparancy...

have fun!

James

[NealG]

Thanks James, can you point me in the direction of the JN ball bearing decoupler?

[James D]

Here is the link to Jonathan's article on his 401. Diy'ing a time machine

James