Sold in kit form, the Connoisseur BD1 was designed and made by A.R. Sugden of Brighouse (Yorkshire):

Arnold Sugden (no relation to R.E. Sugden of Sugden Audio btw) was a remarkable fellow. He left school age 14 and became an apprentice undertaker before deciding to turn to engineering. In 1953, with no formal training in mechanical or electrical engineering Sugden set about making high-fidelity turntables, tone-arms and pickups under the name of "Connoisseur" and (since this was in the days before stereo records), he also built his own disc cutting lathe for producing stereophonic microgroove discs to manufacture the records to play on the turntables he was producing. Since he didn't invent binaural discs his name has been a little forgotten in the history of stereo records and record players, (that honour goes to Alan Blumlein of EMI, but EMI never pursued the format), but it was Arnold Sugden who pioneered the use of stereo cartridges, lightweight tonearms and belt-drive turntables, long before the names we know today.

So, to my little gem re-discovery. I originally bought this by happenstance, needing a decent turntable I went along to a local hif-fi specialist with the hope of buying a good quality used one but they had nothing in stock in my meagre price-range. Taking pity on me the guy suggested the BD1 and said he'd throw in a used tone-arm that he'd just taken off a brand new Thorens turntable because its owner wanted it fitted with an SME arm. So I left the shop with a small box of bits and a used but brand new Thorens TP13 tonearm, complete with cartridge. All I needed to do was make a plinth and having a carpenter for a Dad that presented no problem. The plinth in the photographs is the original that we made back in 1973, contrary to the fashion in the 70s for big chunky plinths I wanted it to be low-profile but was limited by how Mr Sugden had mounted the motor, in the end we managed to squeeze it all into a plinth that was 2¼" (57mm) high; we mounted the TP13 on an aluminium plate that was once the push-plate from an old door and fashioned the lever for the arm-lift out of an old rotary switch mechanism. Everything was direct mounted to the plinth with no isolation or suspension, I simply stood the whole thing on pieces of neoprene foam that were offcuts from making a wet suit and everything was hunky-dory.

(the eagle-eyed may spot the cigarette-burn on the plinth by the on/off switch, as I said, this turntable serve me through my teenage years, including my 3 years at university - this TT was for chilling and grooving)

So there it is, looking a little worse for wear, the drive-belt is missing, the elastic bands that suspended the motor under the platter have long-since perished and the on/off knob has corroded (but that's easily remedied). The tone-arm is safely packed away elsewhere, having long-since been removed from the turntable and kept as a "spare" for my Thorens TD130 turntable that is equipped with the same arm. Out of idle curiosity I gave the 10-inch aluminium platter a flick with my finger and remarkably (considering it hadn't been used for over thirty years) it span for almost two minutes before finally coming to rest. The bearing that Sugden pioneered back in the 1960s is simple - a hardened steel spindle runs in a phosphor-bronze tube that has a single ball bearing in the bottom, this design is still used today, though Rega et al seem to favour ceramic or sapphire balls these days.The motor suspension using three elastic bands on the other-hand I think can be improved, as can the speed selection.

Because this was my first turntable I've always been loathed to part with it and it always sounded great, so I am considering re-plinthing project for the summer; this time with complete decoupling between the motor, the platter and the tone arm and all the modern niceties of isolation cones and sound-absorbing foam. Sadly my Dad is no longer alive to help, but I'm sure I've picked-up enough carpentry skills to complete the task. I'm also toying with an idea of driving the motor from some custom electronics that will provide the speed selection and speed control, I haven't worked out the details of that yet, but it could involve an optical sensor to monitor the platter speed, a phase-locked-loop and a power-amp/isolation transformer set-up to drive the motor coils. I'd also consider doing something about the 10" platter but that's more complex as the drive-belt runs around the rim, however something as simple as putting a 3mm 12" acrylic mat on top could be enough.

So, perhaps one day it could look like this:

Sounds like a fantastic project to me.

@Steve - cheers, I certainly feel inspired to pursue it as I still haven't found a nice piece of timber to make an electric cello out of yet. [I have all the cello-y bits ready to go and I had a piece of willow tree slowly drying in the shed but sadly it dried too fast and split - ho-hum].

Last night (nothing on TV again after The Blacklist) I gave some more thought to the plinth design:

Getting close to the final design now. Added switches for the power, speed and arm raise/lower and a heat-sink for the motor-drive amplifier. I've also corrected the tonearm alignment geometry and recessed it into the plinth as it is on my TD130.

I intend to make everything from 6mm MDF sheets that will be laminated together to make the varying thicknesses of material in the design, this way I can produce recesses in the timber without using a router. It also means I can get the panels made using a laser cutter if I can find somewhere local that will do it for a reasonable price. Otherwise it will be me, a jigsaw and a dremel... that a lot of time and patience.

I've more or less sorted the speed control circuitry:

331/3 rpm = [11.0592MHz Xtal] ->[Divide by 128]=(86.4KHz)->[Divide by 216]=(400Hz)->]Divide by 8]=50Hz 

45 rpm = [11.0592MHz Xtal] ->[Divide by 128]=(86.4KHz)->[Divide by 160]=(540Hz)->]Divide by 8]=67.5Hz 

The last divider stage is a crude 3-bit DAC that converts 400Hz square waves into 50Hz sinewaves, this goes through a filter to smooth-out any rough edges and then to the power amplifier and step-up transformer.

In theory that should be enough to produce a signal to drive the motor that will be significantly more stable than the mains that the old version of the turntable used.

I'm working in a method of measuring the platter speed and using that as the "compare" signal in a phase-locked loop. I intended to look at using the laser diode from an old DVD drive but on taking one to pieces I spied a disc position optical sensor that is used in the Lightscribe circuitry which seems a far better proposition because it is a lot less bulky and will fit unobtrusively under the rim of the plater. This sensor will pick-up strobe marks on the underside of the platter and convert them to a square-wave. 

A disc spinning at 331/3 rpm does 1 full revolution in 1.8 seconds, therefore to produce a 400Hz signal that I can phase-lock to the 400Hz in the speed control circuit 400 ticks will need to pass over the sensor in one second. So in 1.8 seconds 720 ticks will pass over the sensor, which means that the ticks will be spaced every ½ degree. At first glance that seems to be very narrow, especially when you think back to the little plastic protractors we used at school that had graduations once every 1 degree:

But on an 10" platter (which has a circumference of 31.42 inches) ½ degree is 1 tick every .04" (or just over 1mm).

Anyway... long explanation short - I used Excel, Gerber-viewer and Adobe Illustrator to create a 10 inch diameter disc with 720 strobe ticks and printed it on a 1200dpi printer, and it looks fine. If I could get that etched under the rim of the platter that would be even better.

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Brief update.

The project is moving along, albeit slower than I would have hoped. The idea of laser cutting was quickly discarded once I'd calculated how much it was going to cost to cut three 1.2m sheets of 6mm MDF, so I crudely bolted a Rotozip Rebel spiral saw to an old wardrobe door to form a cheap and cheerful router table so I could accurately cut-out the dozens of pieces of wood needed to make the plinth. They are all glued-up now and waiting to be sanded, filled and sanded again before painting. I've "Macgyvered" a simple sanding table using the same wardrobe door as before but now fitted with an electric drill and a hook'n'loop sanding disc pad - just waiting on a delivery of sanding discs from Amazon before work can continue. 

Next stage is to produce the brass boxes that house all the electronics - aluminium would probably be easier to work with but I can't braze that and brass leaves me the option of polishing and varnishing it, which could look cool (or it could look really tacky).

I've bread-boarded most of the electronics and that seems to work as planned, in the end I used the TDA2030A in BTL configuration because the size of step-up transformer I just happened to have lying around in a drawer - if I wasn't such a tight-wad I'd have splashed out on a toroidal transformer of the right turns-ratio, but this works just fine. The electronics for the "soft-touch" switches works and I really like the piano-key style lever switches I've designed - since the Connoisseur is piece of a late-60s/early-70s design I wanted the switches to resemble the keys on an old cassette player yet still look modern.

So, since starting this little project I've had dozens of ideas running around in my head that I'd like to have tried but decided that I wanted to keep as much of the original Arnold Sugden Connoisseur hardware as I could. The only thing I've discarded so far is the on-off switch and three perished elastic bands so it will still be able to carry the Connoisseur badge with some degree of integrity. 

While on vacation last week we dropped in on a friend of Debs who'd just retired and moved down to Somerset. While they were Debs friends I'd never actually met her husband before, after showing us around their new house he took us to a room above his garage which was going to be his new "man cave" that he was kitting out as a listening room with all new equipment (which had only been delivered the previous day and was still boxed and unopened). Rather than show me the expensive audiophile contents of the boxes he instead pulled a sturdy and very professional looking flight-case from behind the sofa. "Would you like to see my retirement present from work?" he asked. Puzzled but curious, I nodded.... this was inside:

..that's a Limited Edition Technics SL-1200GLD Direct Drive Turntable. *gulp* ... a $2,500 retirement present - somehow I don't think I'll be getting anything like that when I retire. I glanced around the room for his record collection but couldn't see anything so assumed it was all still boxed up after his move. To make conversation I told him I'd just bought the 180gm 40th anniversary Dark Side of the Moon. "I've got an older version of that" he said -- I replied that I had several copies, including a first edition. He didn't look impressed. He opened a cupboard to reveal his entire album collection ... of around 10 albums (I didn't count them) and most of them were hifi test albums, so it was my turn to look unimpressed. Until that is he reached in and very carefully pulled his copy of Dark Side ... a 1978 original half-speed master recording from Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab ...only 25,000 of those were ever produced and they are said to sound amazing. For all the very expensive equipment in that room, including the SL-1200, I would have happily walked out of there with that under my arm.

I agree that it is very nicely made but it's not to my tastes. I think we're going to have to acknowledge that our ideas of cool in the turntable world are wildly different. 

For me nothing can quite match the ritual of picking up that black round thing placing it on the platter and lowering the arm while watching that cantilever take the strain. 

Reading your thought process leads me to believe the end result could be something special. Please keep us updated.

I'm no engineer but the only thing which looks a bit weird, as you have yourself pointed out, is having the arm mounted in a separate body than the platter. Both will need to be joined in some precise manner in order to preserve the alignment. I understand the argument about having the possibility to change the arm type without having to screw the body top, but what about simply having a sub-top for the arm in the same body as the platter, which could be replaced if necessary by a different one?

Having the tonearm separate is a common feature of high-end turntables:

While there is no direct connection between the pivotal point of the tonearm and the spindle of the platter the weight of both plinths acting through the spikes should be enough to ensure a degree of rigidity between them. If the vibration in both is kept to a minimum then the complete decoupling should not present a problem, (given the wavelength of acoustic vibration is measured in metres not millimetres any residual vibration is sympathetic anyway). I can always add weight to reduce vibration and increase rigidity.

The obvious advantage is the geometry can be adjusted which is something that is difficult to achieve on a one-piece plinth, while I took measurements from my Thorens TD160 to get the approximate position of the arm, I cannot claim my measurements were in any way accurate so some tweaking will be necessary. 

But as I said, from the perspective of this design it's purely aesthetic. 

Long way to go yet, progress has been incredibly slow due to other priorities, such as The Good Lady deciding that, since The Daughter is getting married next year, the entire house inside needs completely redecorating, and the garden needs sorting out, and the patio, and the car-port/veranda, and probably much more besides, (it's been a while since I consulted the extensive 2-page "to do list" that appeared on the 'fridge door several months ago). Quite why this should be is beyond my simple male-mind to comprehend, but she has spoken...

So... Back in June the woodwork looked like this:

And now, after receiving multiple coats of paint it looks a little like this:

This is just a "dry-fit" of all the major parts to ensure it all fits together nicely. The paintwork will require more sanding and several coats of clear lacquer before being buffed to a mirror finish, then a coat of anti-static because at the moment it attracts dust and cat-hair like crazy. I've still got all the metalwork to do and I've yet to transfer all the breadboarded electronics to PCB but hopefully those can be accomplished over the winter-months. Onwards and upwards. 

If you mean on the top left of the table itself (not the separate unit to the left of it), this must be a slat that covers the motor and pulley assembly .. right?

Correct, but here in "the rest of the world" we used 50Hz. Unfortunately the motor is an 110v AC motor so that source of noise is still present in the turntable plinth. I could replace that with a DC motor but I want to retain all of the Connoisseur components, including the motor.

I've kept the power-supply and speed control circuit separate more for aesthetics than any practical consideration - it also means that at some later date I can replace that box with a different design if I want to.

I originally intended them to be touch switches then changed my mind and redesigned them to be lever style push-buttons like a piano key. However, I didn't want them to latch mechanically so used a non-latching sub-miniature micro-switch and designed the latching function part in electronics. This is very similar to how the soft-touch "push-on/push-off" foot-switch on Ibanez and Danoelectric effects peddles work. For those who understand digital electronics, the circuit looks like this:

..which is a simple toggle-latch that lights either a green (ON) or red (OFF) LED - the two output lines (X1-1 and X1-2) go to the Speed Control circuit.

And mechanically, it looks something like this: 

(the LED is bi-colour)

A similar piano key circuit is used to raise and lower the tonearm. In the photograph the arm-lift is not yet fitted as I'm still working on the electro-mechanical part of the design.

It has been a long established practice in audio circles to keep power amps permanently powered as they can take up to 20 minutes to settle down to their working temperature and bias levels. You wouldn't do a comparative listening test on cold equipment for example. Certainly when we design, build and test them any adjustments are made after their ambient temperature has stabilised so it would be logical to allow a similar time to elapse before using it. Since the drive circuit for the motor in my tt design is simply an audio power amplifier extending that practice to this turntable also seems logical.

[My NAD 3020A has been switched on since I first bought it back in 1982 and only gets switched off when I move house or there is a power cut. It is a testament to the NAD design engineers that it has not given me any trouble whatsoever in 32 years of (literally) continuous use. Personally I don't know if it makes any difference to the listening pleasure but not power-cycling an amp puts less strain on the components.]

Of course most remote-controlled equipment has a "standby mode" that switches off some of the circuitry but keeps the IR link powered so you can switch it back on.

But for 3 days it is on 24/7......During winter months when I listen a lot, I leave it on for months. I do turn off my DAC since it has a tube, a tube only has so many hours.

 

Then you have the people that argue you have to turn it off.....well my refrigerator has been running ON for 15yrs in my current house and I can count on one hand how many hours it has been off in those 15yrs, and it still keeps my food cold and safe to eat today....

 

Habit just keeps me from leaving my gear on 24/7, I hear my dad in my head screaming at me to "turn it off...your wasting electricity!!"

 

very cool!