Sansui SR-929

Large and very heavy beast made when LP was king, still not attacked by the prospect of digital tapes on one side or digital discs on the other.

The SR-929 is a PLL Quartz-Locked direct drive turntable aided by an FG loop.
The motor is made of a very beefy 20-pole rotor magnet with a 30-slot core (still not a brush-less / slot-less) ; it is powered by a toroidal transformer to limit flux leakage.

The weight of the 929 mainly comes from the diecast composite resin base topped by a diecast aluminium motor base ; the particleboard cabinet is multi-layer lacquered with ultra-glossy black polyester resin - Sansui black.

The four insulators are height adjustable and made of an ABS casing holding natural and butyl rubber cushions, and felt lining.
The mat is slightly concave with "pyramidical projections on the periphery" - a bit difficult to keep clean but probably the most eye-catching mat ever designed !

The tonearm was no afterthought and was probably the most original part of the 929 : knife-edge support for the vertical plane, ball-bearing jewel needle-point for the horizontal plane. The bearing at the very top is a sapphire.

The counterweight holds a rubber damping material wrapped around the traversing arm wand and the massive diecast arm base is made of zinc alloy.
Plus or minus 3mm arm height can be adjusted alongwith lateral balancer and inside-force canceller ; tracking force readout is graduated in 0,05g steps... The aluminium diecast, tapered, headshell/wand connection hides gold-plated pins.

As for almost all Sansui turntables, the SR-929 was partly engineered and/or built by Micro Seiki, the originals of which seem to be located between the DD-6 and the DD-7 ; the tonearm source however remains a mystery (SAEC ?).

The looks, of course, were one of the main attractions back then and it should be noted that the original finish of the platter's entire surround block, hiding the strobe and red lights, was silver aluminium.


Original japanese catalogs finally found - stay tuned !