EMT 927 vs. Micro Seiki 5000 or 8000 - different?

Dear Channel10, this hobby is all about learning, experimenting and assessing. If I meet guys addicted to a certain church and looking for new church members I am always suspicious. It might feel well being welcomed in an audio church as it does in a therapeutic group. My target is always keeping independent from the so called gurus or any misguided influence. In reality it is sometimes hard to detect what is going on.

Nevertheless I do count neither you nor Soundlistening as a guru but a well informed (by your own experience) audio enthusiast & expert, maybe also on special fields. The discussions with you - and we do it since three years - was and is a very fruitful one. Having said that I still have to be convinced by my own ears that the 139st will beat some of my separate phono stages. Therefore I am looking forward to the big experiment we will do in May.

what do the well cared for EMT 927 turntables sell for these days? Bob

Dear Baranyi,
the question is how much would you like to spend .
in Japan you might follow Yahoo and you see it is in between a range of 35-60T$, depending whether it is fully equipped 927 with a phono stage, tube, mono, stereo, Ortofon arm, EMT arm etc.
As Channel10 mentioned the value is continously rising. So if you intend to keep the value you do the right thing.

I would be cautious when securing any EMT R80 or 927. the guys who have them tend to hold onto them....so those out there are hard to come by or there is a reason attached.

The last ebay ones were in very bad condition. Remember that the 927 has the dedicated PS for the EMT 139st Phono stage (it must have that...). Many capacitors in these parts and yes they can be upto 60 years old so stable DC to the all important phono cannot be guarenteed let alone the phonos stage equalizing circuits (3 in all as you can choose).

Two ways in my view: get a low priced one and have it serviced by Dusch or get a serviced one. FYI I have taken both routes and in all honesty they come out to approx the same amount. Another alternative is the Thuchan route taking on the TT part and not using the phono. Then Van Vliet makes the replica EMT 139st that I have heard and you would be hard pressed to tell any difference with an original that I have. VV also does a PS for it so this is an alternative to house in a 927 or R80 TT base.

Many routes I guess....but it will cost serious money to jump onboard. But what is serious? Think the price of a good familly car.....or for Europe verging towards 2 X the average annual salary. Add to that the increased buying of records....the "necessary" cartridges TSD15, TMD25 and for the hardcore 78ers one of the 65 range....

In my books? Best thing I ever did and wished I had done it earlier.

All fun!

Hi Thuchan

Sure, I have had the chance to compare these tt's. I think I wrote to you once about them.

The 927 could be said to be 'more musical' than the Micro Seiki 8000. The Seiki gives a more incisive performance, the 927 interprets the music in a different way. Taken differently it is easy to see why either turntable would be a serious contender for anyone's setup...depending on their sonic preferences.

After all, most hifi is a specific interpretation of the original sound...rarely is anything 100% pure signal, but you know this.

The Pioneer P3A system is a similar turntable to the EMT, above the performance of any Technics sp-10mk3. I have one running with an Audio Note IO-Ltd.

As a complete system the 927 is really cool...the resonances and input/output sensitivities are all calculated for you. Its a fit and forget monster.

:)