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The Love of Turntables and The Organization Of An Audio Room

This is an area that has been a challenge for me, stretching over a number of years. Well specifically since we moved to this house about 10 years ago. My listening room is our closed off living room, and its primary purpose is music but we do have friends over occasionally. If you can limit your number of friends in your life, then this becomes a somewhat minor problem.

My system is somewhat complicated, and there are a number of boxes. My real dilemma is turntables. I love them. I try to limit myself to two, but I have not been successful. Currently have four. Well 3.5 as one needs a tonearm and cartridge. The third turntable becomes problematic because if I put it on my credenza, then I do not have a space to reach over the back to get to cabling and pre amp or phono stage. When things are neat and tidy it looks like this

But it is on the verge of getting out of control

Sometimes I envy those folks who can be content with one turntable. The black table with the DP80 on it will never leave because the plinth was machined by my son. But sometimes I do wonder if I sold all the others and combined things to one upper tier table, what could I have? But conversely I really wonder if my system and room could really show the benefits of the next tier of record spinner.

neonknight
ghdprentice's avatar
ghdprentice
9,466 posts
 

I have always strove for the maximum possible fidelity from my system at any one time. Therefore having multiple anything has never happened. I would always stretch and trade in on my next level component. I figured out early on that 2x investment (and a lot of careful research) would guarantee an important boost in sound quality. So, I have always been in that camp.

I can't help it but think that the quality of getting lots of different versions of the same thing may be a personal trait thing above all. But if you don't feel that way. Then absolutely having one really good turntable for the same given investment will sonically beat the pants off of having many.  

newton_john's avatar
newton_john
568 posts
 

@neonknight 

If collecting turntables is your thing, that’s absolutely fine by me. It’s not for me though as I have neither the money to spare nor the space to accommodate more than one. I wouldn’t want to compromise the quality of the one I’ve got to acquire more. Sorry, I can’t comment on your turntables as the photos are not viewable in my region.
 

neonknight OP
529 posts
 

A bit crowded. Had to move the phono stage to the floor and put some feet under it. 

 

lewm
14,687 posts
 

I really like your new dp80 plinth.

neonknight OP
529 posts
 

@lewm Thank you for the kind words. Since my son milled me the plinth, as you can imagine, it will never leave me. 

With that being said, I know it can be argued that I could have proud pappa syndrome in this case, but the sound I am achieving has notably exceeded my expectations. 

Is the DP80 significantly better than the DP75 I have owned, and own again?

Is the plinth we built contribute to this excellent performance?

Is it significantly better than the original VPI plinth I had a DP75 in?

Is this Dynavector DV505 noticeably better than the other two I owned?

Is this Wireworld Silver Micro Eclipse tonearm cable outperforming the OEM cables that came with my Dynavector arms?

There is no way for me to answer this with any certainty. There is just no way for me to isolate all the variables in this iteration. 

All I know is this is sounding very nice. Even this final set of no name feet and receivers I am using for the points is providing wonderful results. 

As I listen to this, I have a hard time justifying to a person who is cost conscious that this is not one of the best choices they can make. For a long long time I have been a reluctant user of direct drive tables. I liked my SP 10 MK II and my DP75, but those were exceptions to the rule of how I felt about most direct drive tables. It still may be true. But I will say the DP80 is a champion, and if people ever catch onto them, the price is going to rise significantly. I am glad I got mine. 

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