Reason for buying old/classic turntables

I am guilty of falling in love with vintage tables and have 6 to prove the point - Micro-Seiki RX5000; Victor TT-101; SP10 Mk2; Lenco L75; Sony PS-X70; Micro-Seiki BL-51; oh and I have an old AR-XA waiting to be revived. Add to these a bunch of old tone-arms such as Lustre 801; Audiocraft 4400; Sony PUA-1600L and I come to the conclusion its a bit like buying old sports cars - performance OK, pride of ownership ...... priceless! BTW I am lusting after a Thorens TD-124, a Yamaha GT2000; Pioneer Exclusive P3; Sony PS-X9 etc. etc!

Now, with great reluctance the truth is:- that today, the best sounding rig is my Oracle Delphi V SE, Dynavector 507 II and Miyabi McBee. I love all my vintage stuff, and it all sounds great (my Yamaha CA2010 amp is sublime in my ski chalet) but let's be realistic we are not judging on quantitative measures alone but "perceived enjoyment" and it is really nice to connect with some of the vintage gear.

One phenomena we should consider is that the Linn Sondek LP 12 hijacked the reality of what sounded good - and I used to own one. The Linn had a less analytical presentation than the mainstream Japanese audio in the 70's and the press hyped to a point of evangelical proportions and DD became passe and belt drives were it all of a sudden. Interestingly, as a previous owner of an AR belt drive, followed by a Heybrook TT, the LP12 became the standard not by design, but by consistent implementation and good marketing. Then with Thorens also selling expensive belt drive tables, that sounded very nice, and the Japanese DD tables in consumer friendly lightweight plinths that sounded poor, we became aficionados of belt drives. Now 20 years later with better implementation of constrained mass plinths and so on, we get optimum performance of the older gear. - and it does not sound bad at all!

Reality is that there have been no substantial technology shifts in table design or , well engineered mechanics from 30 years ago are competitive with anything well engineered and designed today. For me, the vintage gear is competitive, but not necessarily better and visa-versa.

Folks like Teres have done an outstanding job of tweaking existing technology with better implementation (I have installed a Verus rim drive on my RX5000 and love it) but the technology has not changed significantly and therefore my conclusion is that vintage or modern, the performance will be defined by attention to detail, well executed design and tight manufacturing tolerances and there is no single platform that wins - and I can demo you DD, Idler, Belt and best implementation wins, not a specific technology platform.

Chris, there is some serious "audiojewellery" out there - that Thorens would look quite nice in my rig and I bet it doesn't sound too shabby either! Great audio pieces are like great time pieces for me - aesthetics, performance, engineering and functionality all count. Of course it is always a matter of personal taste. One of the reasons that tipped my decision to unload my ARC Ref 3 was performance ..... good (but not the best), looks ...... ugly. Now beauty is in the eye of the beholder but I might have kept that piece if it looked gorgeous and I don't apologize for that because at the end of the day not only do I listen to my music, but I do have to look at the stuff as well - which could lead us into a different discussion altogether about whether we listen with our eyes when we make purchasing decisions on the big gear!

Steve

Wow! My analogy to vintage cars was purely from the pride of ownership perspective. Nevertheless since a couple of folks have responded, let me develop the analogy further, just for fun.

Vintage sports cars for the consumer had significant trickle down technology from the R&D that went into race cars, just think of Aston Martin, Jaguar, MG, Bugatti, Ferrari, Porsche, Mercedes, even Renault and even Honda, Subaru and so on. Of course today F1 relies on technology adaptation and the only thing that trickles down is brand positioning.

If you think about the first real consumer Hi-Fi, most of the offerings were adapted from broadcast and professional requirements to spin records in a consistent fashion in studios and radio stations. The rational for developing the Technics / Matsushita, Sony, Victor, EMT, Garrard consumer decks etc. came from a new market demand. Many of these offerings were rebranded for the newly emerging high end retail market.Consumer Audio developed quickly as the need for high quality home record players developed and some companies such as Dual, AR and later Linn became were really pure play consumer brands (the Dual company history is particularly interesting, but I can't think of a Dual deck that is iconic today) because the price of entry was low, very little Intellectual Property protection, no regulatory requirements / standards and hence no real barriers to entry. Today that whole business model remains alive and well in consumer audio! Most of us have little insight to the PRO business, but some of the best stuff available today for the consumer comes from audio companies supplying the PRO market, such as VTl. Spectron etc. So I don't argue with the previous post that there is trickle down technology coming into retail products.

However, in vintage audio, the trickle down technology for those rim drive and DD decks came from broadcast requirements, not mass consumer product development (which would be trickle up I guess). Tape would be an even better example. So I reject the notion that high end turntables were developed as a by product of mass consumer R&D budgets. Now, today there may exceptions, such as Marantz, but you can't argue with the reality that these vintage tables garnering so much attention here are all iterations of broadcast products. The specialty esoteric products from such companies as Micro-Seiki, Kenwood, Nakamichi, Luxman, and even Pioneer were purely developed for consumer markets and relied on high tolerance engineering and smart circuit design that was very specific to the turntable platform for esoteric products. No different to the fine engineering that went into the real sports cars, Alpha, Allards, Jensen, Austin-Healeys, Studebaker, Triumph, TVR, etc etc.

Now frankly, the sports car market was not a lot different, many brands, no barriers to entry other than money, not sustainable, but still highly desirable to own today. I don't think high end audio is a lot different. Some brands come and go in the night and others such as Linn, Naim, ARC, B&W, Spendor, Quad, Manaplanar, VTL, Martin Logan, McIntosh remain (and some changed hands and got refinanced a couple of times) and lets not forget the Accuphase type of companies - another lust of mine.

So, when you jump into a 1960's E-Type, DB7, Corvette, or 911 it does not really matter if the specs don't meet that latest turbo - it is the whole experience that counts - and that was the point of my analogy and I rest my case.

Steve

I concur with Lewm regarding the Lenco, it can be a tweakers dream as well - just like those old Triumph's - OK enough Steve!

Best wishes and Happy Holidays to all Audiogoners and Vinylphiles