Every day I see another turntable recommendation...

@ghdprentice

I agree with what you're saying generally across the board.

I have little doubt that a Planar 3 is considerably superior to my Rega 3 from the mid 80s. Nor that there are some fabulous designs around the $1k mark these days.

I guess it's hardly surprising when you consider the amount of competition that is out there today plus the fact that sound quality seems to be far more of a priority these days as compared to convenience. The advances in design technology and engineering, of course, aren't going to hurt either, are they?

However, what happens if we were to compare a Technics SP10 from 1971 with its modern day equivalent?

Or, going back even further, a carefully restored AR turntable with a similar design from today?

I can't help but wish, for the sake of perspective if nothing else, that there were far more 'real world' comparisons such as this.

So happens I had an AR turntable from the late 70’s. I treated it with great care. Had it maintained a couple years ago. It was not remotely competitive with the VPI I bought in 1995 and certainly not in the same league as my current Linn LP12.

Go listen and enjoy. There are several good decks listed. I would consider second hand - high end decks tend to be well cared for.

View audio like you would clothes or watches - get what suits u.

I will warn you that buying TT’s is addictive.

I would approach this as a TT with arm and cartridge.

J-wall

Im interested in your upgrade path on turntable and cartridge 

an upgraded cartridge and a little better TT goes a long way 

but, I’m most interested in your sq difference between the solid state musical surroundings phono and Allnic phono. One of my audio buddies has converted to mostly Allnic .   Just wondering what the true differences were ?

Saulh 

j-wall said a mouthful In a few sentences . In my opinion he’s very right , but I’m limited in TT experience. Audio buddies have high end stuff to compare my stuff too

acoustic solid with triplaner and Purple Heart & esoteric phone and avid & lyra & ref 6 phono

I’m interested in your current thoughts as to your direction 

Jeff 

@frozentundra, obviously I am just learning about this so take all of what follows with a chunk of salt and ymmv. For me, though I think every link in the chain is important, I think the phono stages dictate the signal that gets through to the pre/power and can exist in my system for many years, so I made that my priority. Cartridge is also hugely important and I think quality can have a big impact for relatively little cost so it is not imo where you want to cut corners, but is more temporary, so its impact on my system will be less imho. Turntable is important too, but my current impression is that there are a lot of similar quality options close in price in the range where I am looking and big improvements come at huge cost. I am less focused on tonearms for better or worse. Anyway, in line with my priority, I saw what looked like a good deal on an Icon Audio PS1 MKii, so I took it. Now I am looking at turntables, mostly focusing on what I can hear at local dealers who are willing to plug my phono stage into the system. So far, I have heard the Clearaudio Concept and Performance DC as well as the Rega P3 and the Project Xtension 10. At this point, I am leaning toward the Performance DC, but tbh, I was coming here today to ask the question: is the $2k price difference between the two Clearaudio models worth it? I could get a decent streamer for that money...