How many turntables have you owned?

Five; the life of a casual 78 collector-turned semi-professional transfer engineer in about eight years:

1) Audio Technica LP-120. Removed the built-in preamp to improve the signal chain. Used for a few years as a starter table

2) Dual 1229. Read good things, but the automatic queue feature broke a week after I bought it. Used it as a second table for stacking cheap 78s for a few months before I realized how bad it sounded. The speed stability was a lot worse than advertised. Whoever I bought it from claimed to have restored it, too.

3)  Technics 1200 in DJ-worn shape. Intended to have it modded a bit to use with 78s, but never got around to it.

4) Rek-O-Kut Rondine 3 made by Esoteric Sound for use with 78s. Infinitely-adjustable 16-90 RPM, generally good specs for a ~$1,000 table. Used for several years, generally about as good as it gets for most 78 collectors. A lot of well-regarded reissue CDs were made (by others) with this table. Decent mid-level Jelco transcription tonearm. I generally liked this setup, but it still has an upper-mid-end sound.

5) Technics SP-10R. Endgame. Albert Porter panzerholz plinth, upgraded Fidelity Research FR-66S and Viv Labs Rigid Float tonearms. Soon to have a Soundsmith Strain Gauge to supplement the Shure V15 Vx (generally the best it gets for 78s because dozens of stylii are needed and MC cartridges are non-starters)

It REALLY makes you think, when you realize that your first TT was maybe a Mattel. Maybe I was 6 years old. It was red, my favorite color.

There have been Many since then, but none of them since then were used to sling little green army men of the platter when turned on.

Oracle Delphi

Garrard 301 (never played it)

Rek-O-Kut L-34 (never played it)

Only two:

One when I was kid. Then…

1984 SOTA Saphire
Plus 2 arms, and 4 arm boards. Rebuild kit and RoadRunner controller.

But I have been looking at some other tables recently. (Older Micro Seiki, Luxman, and Denon tables.)

My first was a portable wind-up 78 player, with steel needles, or dried hawthorn needles for a softer sound. Given to me by a grandmother, probably to the disgust of my parents who had to listen! In those days we had a massively heavy teak Garrard radiogram. My mother had me chop it into firewood and I knew no better than to comply. It was chopped up as my brother had bought a Philips mono autochanger with a ceramic pickup. Next table was my wife-to-be's Sony, replaced with a Garrard SP25 MkIV. Left that behind in the UK, and bought a piece of Radio Shack crap on arrival in Canada. Then got seduced by CDs and didn't come back until I got a RP3/Shure V15 about 2006. Stepped up to an SME 10/Series V in 2011, and acquired a second SME 10 this year. No intention whatsoever of buying any more tables!