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.

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Wow, I had a Philips 212… what a terrible sounding turn table. Also, some Thorens and cheap Garrard. I also had an AR circa 1980… with the Sure V15 (?). Wow, also terrible in comparison to any reasonable priced table and arm from the late 90’s to now. While I understand nostalgia, I really understand sound quality… and none of the old stuff had it… maybe high end Garrard.

I am a "cold war" era G.I. that went to Europe and bought a Thorens TD126III and a SME 3009 tonearm.  I still own it. While in Europe I bought A Stanton 881S and a Micro acoustics 530MP.  This was magnificent to my ears.  I later bought a Shure V15VxMr and it STILL sounds magnificent.  I own a system that is shifting more to digital and the heart is a multi-function DAC, but I still own close to 1200 albums. Analog will always have a physical aura to how it represents reproduction; but the whole audio spectrum will shift.

 

@jeffstrick 

Yep, 2’ idis in smaller packages. 😂😂😂

Audiophiles are worse than boat guys

While I still have a couple hundred records, As fast as I could afford it, I bought a CD player and haven’t looked back.  I found all the clicks and pops, no matter how small, very distracting and annoying.  We all talk about that being there sound and when I go to the symphony if someone sneezes, I find it distracting as well. 
Having said this about vinyl, when I stream something that’s labeled HR and I hear clicks and pops or tape hiss that really makes me scratch my head.

Getting off my soapbox….

I like my new Thorens td1500, yea not a linn, but I bet it's pretty close for a lot less money.