Turntable upgrade recommendations: SME vs AMG vs Technics vs other

@lewm , I was a bit ragged there and not specific enough. Vintage classical recordings and some vintage jazz recordings are excellent however popular music recording particularly in America in the 60s and early 70s could be quite bad. Many of them were recorded OK but the mastering was done on cheap equipment without much care. After all, the kids are just going to listen on portable Zeniths. I have hundreds of these records and the quality is laughable. Consequently, when remastered on modern equipment the jump in quality can make a dismal record very enjoyable. Even today you run across the occasional popular record that is not balanced correctly and does not sound right at any volume level. 

Then the second issue is that high resolution digital versions of older analog recordings frequently sound better and I mean by direct AB comparison of both formats synchronized and played back at the same time with the ability to switch back and forth from the listening position, (the same goes for comparing remasters.)   There is a lot of harmonic distortion at high frequencies with vinyl playback. This creates a high frequency haze that fills in between the instruments.This is very noticeable with high frequency percussion, cymbals, triangles and such. Localization of these instruments is more distinct with digital playback as a rule. When you hear a digital recording played back in high res digital the results can be quite amazing. Vinyl people do not want to hear this and they do not have to listen to me. These are repeatable observation I have made on my system which everyone knows is substandard along with my hearing. I called them another word beginning in "S" but the post was removed because I guess it offended someones tender eyes. Well, Excuse Me. I do not care what the format is or whether it is tubes or solid state. I am not married to anything except what I think is the best sound. Everyone else is entitled to there own opinion but not listening to music because it was recorded with transistors and not tubes is cutting off your nose to spite your face according to Henry IV.

 "There is a lot of harmonic distortion at high frequencies with vinyl playback. This creates a high frequency haze that fills in between the instruments.This is very noticeable with high frequency percussion, cymbals, triangles and such."

This is not my experience generally. My analog setup is a heavily modified by me VPI Classic 4, SME 312S, Soundsmith Sussorro Mk 2 ES, Pass XP-27. Digital is from a PS Audio DirectStream DAC. Preamp is an ARC Ref6 SE. I find that the high frequency separation, finesse and especially transient attack is much better on vinyl. The timing on cymbal crashes is just not quite fast enough or realistic enough with digital in my experience.

I just got done comparing my Philips Classics Tchaikovsky 4th Symphony by RCO with Bernard Haitink on my DAC, transferred from my CD, to a sealed LP copy I just received of the same 1978 performance from Holland. Granted, this is a CD, not hi rez, but there is no comparison, in my setup, between the two. The LP trounces it across the board, except maybe for localization, which is interesting that you point that out. I feel that the superior tracking of my Sussurro works with my highly resolving XP-27 to flesh out the most minute of details that are simply not to be heard on even hi rez digital, again through my DAC. 

And this was just the high frequency angle. My LP in the case, as in most cases, is better throughout the frequency range. I can't listen to my digital seriously for more than about 5 minutes.

And yet I hate the inconsistency and hit or miss nature of vinyl. But just one excellent example, on Philips which there are many, I think, keeps me in the vinyl game.

To begin with, I rarely if ever listen to "popular music" from the 60s, 70s, and 80s on my audio systems, with the prominent exception of the Beatles and some others. But I do know what you are talking about due to my brief forays into that genre. A lot of that pop music we grew up with was meant to be heard on a car radio, preferably a convertible, preferably with a member of the opposite sex sitting in the passenger seat.  I bought one of the re-issues of the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" on LP.  On a good audio system, the tunes bear little resemblance to my aural memory of those tunes dating back to the 60s. It would not surprise me at all if hi-rez digital reproduction of some of that music would exceed vinyl in fidelity.  I had a similar experience with a collection of Buddy Holly hits on a Classic Records LP and recently on a 4-LP set of Roy Orbison tunes (but I still love Roy). On the other hand, the best in-studio or on site jazz recordings were made with a very serious eye for fidelity by very knowledgeable engineers with very high end (for the times) equipment, and we are rewarded these days for their work.  If you prefer hi-rez for that material, that is your personal choice to which you are entitled. I don't think re-mastering per se can restore what wasn't there in the first place. The very best re-mastering can only preserve what is there, and typically using tape sources that have aged.  As regards the nature of the distortions you (and I) perceive, I don't think you are hearing "harmonic distortion" of high frequencies, because harmonics of high frequencies would be out of the range of your and my hearing, and because true harmonic distortion is not unpleasant and even hard to detect.  LPs vary all over the place in their quality.  In some cases, especially for classical orchestral or big band jazz recordings, there is a tendency for the sound of stringed instruments or of the brass instruments playing en masse to congeal and become shrill and unpleasant.  One of the benefits of running so many turntables, using two systems, and having so many cartridges in so many tonearms, is that I can move an LP from one system to another in order to determine whether these distortions are on the LP or due to a shortcoming of one of the components in the reproduction chain at my house.  The results can go either way.  My own pet theory for what causes that occasionally shrill or congealed sound from massed instruments is a combination of cartridge mistracking and turntable speed instability due to variation in stylus drag. So, I also don't doubt that in a given instance, hi-rez digital could do better.  And I use tube, hybrid tube/transistor, and all transistor phono stages.

"preferably with a member of the opposite sex sitting in the passenger seat.  "

PASSENGER SEAT?  Baby you're so square!

So, I communicated with a few of my email audiophile friends, and someone has heard both the Ypsilon VPS-100 phono stage and the FM223 phono linearizer, and his comments are that the FM223 was too analytical and too noisy; he thought the Ypsilon to be very detailed, but with slightly diminished dynamics. . . 

In the meantime, I heeded the suggestion by @lewm  and got a SOTA relfex clamp, and it does improve the sound of the Rega P8 markedly so, even moreso than the spindle weight that I was using.  The clamp really cleans up the sound coming from the vinyl, and it is a very noticeable improvment for anyone with a Rega TT!