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What is the fascination?

I have to ask what is the fascination with these older turntables?  I recently listened to an older SP 10 MKII with a Jelco and Older SME arm with Koetsu and Stanton cartridges.  The sound was very good I will admit but I cannot say it was better than the 1200G or even a 1200GR for that matter.  Heck even the Rega RP 8 is really an amazing sounding turntable for the money and they are brand new.   These tables are coming up on 40 plus years old.  One forum contributor said a turntable should not have any sound at all.  I agree and the newer tables get closer to that "no sound" than many of these colored (smooth,  warm) sounding turntables   I recently purchased a Pickering ESV 3000 MM cartridge that arrived in the mail yesterday and I had to ask myself, "what am I doing?"  So with that being said, why the fascination?  If one want to change the sound of the table, start with the cartridge, they all do sound different.  Nowadays the tables and arms are so good and engineered based on the earlier designs and bettered.  Also, when you buy say an older used arm, how do you know its been cared for?  Arms bearings can be screwed up pretty bad when one tries to tighten cartridges with the headshell attached to the tonearm or the tonearm mounted on the table and many people do not even know they are destroying their arms bearings so I mean you really have to know who you are getting the arm from and check the bearings etc.  There is a lot of risk with turntables, much more than with any components because of so many moving parts that do get old and break.  Why the fascination? 
tzh21y
tzh21y OP
1,654 posts
 
I do not  want to sound like I am dissing older models.  Some are very good and the original owners know what they have.  Again, if you know what you have and if you know someone who is selling a table and you trust him and know him well and that he took care it thats different.
artemus_5's avatar
artemus_5
1,962 posts
 
Nor am I dissing older models. I've had many of them in my sixty years of spinning vinyl. But I've been here a long time and remember the turning point. If someone is willing to do the refurb on an older table then they will save some money
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cleeds
5,957 posts
 
artemus_5
The whole craze started when a post went viral about making a great TT for$100 spent at Home Despot.
What post was that? I have no recollection of it.
chakster's avatar
chakster
6,144 posts
 
I recently listened to an older SP 10 MKII with a Jelco and Older SME arm with Koetsu and Stanton cartridges.

Why these arms ? SP-10mkII is great turntable, but it must be 10.5 or 12 inch tonearms, at least you have to hear Technics EPA series (the best ois EPA-100 mkII) on it with some MM carts. The problem with new Technics SL1200 series is that you can not use most of the 10.5 or 12 tonearms on it.

I recently purchased a Pickering ESV 3000 MM cartridge that arrived in the mail yesterday and I had to ask myself, "what am I doing?"

Do you like it? How much ytou paid if its not a secret ? If you like the sound i’m sure Stanton SC-100 WOS will blown you away compared to Pickering, but for a low budget under 350 usd Pickering XSV3000 is great. Try to load your stanton at 100k Ohm instead of 47k Ohm.

@cleeds

But buying a used pickup arm or phono cartridge is something I’d never consider

You must a be a rich guy if you’re buyin’ new cartridges everytime you want to experiment with different cart or tonearm. If you never tried vintage carts or arms then your experience is very limited. But i believe you may tried them long time ago if you were active back in the 80s ? Anyway even for people like you sellers offering a NOS vintage goods, never used. At the same time ebay buyers protection is always on the buyers side and return for a full refund including shipping is not a problem if a buyer is not happy about used goods for whatever reason.

The fascination comes when a used vintage $1000 cartridge is better than new $5000 cartridge, same about turntables and tonearms. Personally i want to try 5 different vintage carts for $1k each instead of one new cart for $5k. Experience is much more inportant if you know what you're buyin' used and why (imo).  
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