What's all the fuss about late 70s and earl 80s run of the mill midfi turntables?


My first table was a Garrard SL95-B. It was really nothing to sing about and you had to pay extra for the plastic base. I graduated from that to a Philips GA 212. Thank God it was located on a concrete slab floor. Still nothing special. Then on to a Sony 2251 LA with an SME 2009 tonearm. This was a real upgrade with an Ortofon MC20 cartridge and transformer. I thought I was doing that thing in tall cotton. Then I met Russ Goddard at The Audible Difference in Palo Alto. He told me to bring my setup to his store and we would do a little A-B comparison. After listening for only a minute or two it was obvious My Sony was not any way near a Linn LP 12 of that time. Anyway the point is most of the common tables from people like Garrard, Dual, Marantz, were just imposters to the real thing. I hold no nostalgic emotion to those tables. I was foolish enough to sell my Linn setup when the writing was on the wall around 1999 regarding vinyl. Big mistake!! I sold all my vinyl, my table with an Ittock arm arm and audio technica OC-9 shibata. A SOTA MC Head Amp designed by John Curl (a collectors item today) for $1000.00. Lock me up. I had every cartridge of the day, Koetsu, Supex, GAS, Fidelity Research. My 2 year old son tore the stylus off my Sleeping Beauty Shibata accindently.

128x128ged2

Would the OP consider my Thorens TD166 Mk II mid fi from the 1980s?  Bought it new in 1984 because I thought turntables would vanish 😆 and I wanted solid West German(!) engineering that would last.  Got it with two carbon fiber arm wands.  39 years later, and it sounds great with either Ortofon OM 40 or Denon DL160.  Had it modded a bit 12 years ago to damp the platter, upgrade the cables, and replace the feat with adjustable cups that hold racquet balls.

 

All I can say is that when I listen to needle drops done on that rig, through the phono preamp in my McIntosh C220 pre, using my Sweetvinyl Sugarcube to clean up the record and digitize it at 96/24 or 192/24, the sound often beats the hi res versions on Qobuz, especially in terms of soundstage width and height.

 

I sometimes think about some of the modern, moderately priced DD offerings from Thorens, Technics and Music Hall, but I just can't seem to justify spending the money to fix something that isn't broken.

Having been around all those years, I agree with the OP that most of what was popular in the heydey of vinyl was mediocre.  Thorens floaters were an exception…basically AR done better.  Before Linn hit the scene German rim drives were the standard…Dual, Miracord, PE. But in the esoteric background there were Garrard 301s, Rek-O-Kut, Weathers.  Then Panasonic launched the SP10, and many others dove into Direct Drive.  Denon and Luxman also made some very good ones, as did JVC.  These are still credible if given adequate vibration decoupling and properly matched with cartridge.  The midfi is still meh. Then too, there was B&O, did anyone here ever use a TX2 with MMC2?  At my store, the gold standard setup was a B&O table with an MMC3, a Nakamichi cassette deck, a Yamaha or Nakamichi receiver, and a/d/s/ speakers, all day long. 

Well i'm happy with my AT LP 120 with AT ML540 Stylus and Cartridge with Acrylic platter mat.  Sounds good with my Outlaw amp and Sub and Dahli speakers.

@jeffstrick,

                              yeah i'm finding that out to be true!!!