Out of production reference turntables




Hi Folks:

I am sure that there are a sizeable bunch of us who have no qualms about purchasing a piece of gear who's manufacturer no longer exisits but the sound and build quality is fantastic and reliable.

In the analog realm the modern turntable that is my benchmark for the sound I prefer is the VPI TNT.

When I was first seriously getting into this hobby, I remember reading about a few top end tables that, at the time, were considered the best. I would like to get some opinions as to how the following reference tables compare to gear made today using the VPI "signature sound" as a comparison.

1. Goldmund Reference
2. Forsell Air Reference
3. Rockport (any model except the Sirius)
4. Oracle

Thank you for reading.

D.H.
danhirsh
I owned a Goldmund Reference prior to the purchase of a Rockport Sirius and on changing experienced a rather dramatic improvement. I have two friends who own Rockport Capellas and both sound phenomenal. I had a problem with my 15 year old motor controller and Andy Payor was happy to help. With respect to the Rockport, there is very little to break.
jes45, my doubts about Paul's digital being better stem from the fact that Paul's context is while using a hard drive into the Meitner and into his dac. since Paul doesn't have a transport that will input consumer software into the Meitner (the best way) he has no way to compare actual performance with real cd's and sacd's. the Meitner approach to jitter control (slaving the clock into the dac and using the ST optical cable)is really unique.....and to my knowledge not used by Paul on his dac.....so in any case unless you can actually compare the 2 approaches fully optimized you would just be guessing.
Paul has his own transport which will be available soon. He has been using his proto-type for some time. Comparisons have been made.

I had no intent of upsetting you, I just wanted to share the info.
i hope i didn't give you the impression that i was in any way upset. in fact, it would be great if the SOTA is advanced.....and i can't think of a nicer guy than Paul to do it.

my point was that Paul was basing his opinion on hard-drive performance.....not consumer software performance.....at least up to that time. if since that time Paul has got a modified Philips SACD 1000 and compared the consumer level software performance of his DAC/transport to Meitner's then i would enjoy hearing about the result. i'm not sure that the PRO DAC8 will work with the modified SACD 1000.

if you can provide details about this comparison i would love to hear about it.