I just bought an SP-10 MKII on Audiogon that looks to be in very nice condition and is promised to have no isues with either the power supply or table. It does come with the orignal box and all the original packing material which is nice.
It does not come with a plinth and I'm wondering if there are any fellow SP-10 MKII owners here and if so, what you are using for plinths. I would also like to know what tonearms people are using.
And MikeL, if you are reading this, since you used to own a VPI TNT table close to the one I own, what are your thoughts about the SP-10 MKII compared to the sound of the VPI?
Mark
the SP-10 Mk2, depending on the condition, the arm mounted, the plinth it's installed in, and set-up, is capable of sounding dramatically better than the VPI TNT mK2 i owned in the 90's. a more current TNT HRX would be much closer to the SP-10 Mk2 but the SP-10 Mk2 i had was quite a bit better than any HRX i've heard. of course, it had been gone thru and tweaked (both motor and power supply) by Steve Dobbins, was installed in one of his plinths, and had a Schroeder Reference SQ arm. it was a very high end tt.
fully optimized, the SP-10 Mk2 has a wonderful solidity in the speed, great bass dynamics and articulation, and is very alive sounding. it also can have a very low noise floor. but.......the ultimate performance does require a quality plinth and arm that can take advantage of the quality of the motor and basic mechanicals.
there is no way to over state the value of the SP-10 <-> plinth <-> arm board <-> arm interface. the motor needs gounding and mass and the arm needs to be solid relative to the motor. it does not need to be pretty and there is more than one way to skin the cat assuming all those issues are handled.
i'm only really familiar with Dobbins and to a lesser degree Albert's work, so it's hard to recommend any others. i'd guess that OMA is pretty darn good too.....although i prefer a constrained layer plinth design to a one-piece plinth of any natural material since a layered design can be 'engineered' to sound a certain way consistently (read neutral and lively) and any one piece natural design will have some sort of 'sound'.
good luck with your project and congrats on getting a great tt.