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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
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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cleeds
5,960 posts
 
chakster

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 ?
I was an active audiophile in the ’80s, and the ’70s, too. Now as then, I’m not really interested in experimenting with phono cartridges and pickup arms. I buy very high quality stuff, and stay with it. My arm is an SME V that I’ve had for more than 25 years. I don’t feel any need to try another arm. Some guys like to fiddle about with arms and cartridges and that’s fine, of course. I’m in it for the music and not for chasing some elusive and dubious improvement.

As for buying this stuff used: I don’t buy used tires for my car. By the same reasoning, I’d never buy a used phono cartridge and would even be suspicious of one labeled "NOS." A pickup arm is too fragile for me to consider buying used. I’m glad not everyone feels the same way, though. I sold my previous arm (Fidelity Research FR-64fx) to a buddy who still uses it. It sounds as great as ever.
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cleeds
5,960 posts
 
dweller
... I'd like to find a mint Garrard Zero-100 -something from my youth. Was really "spiffy"!
Ugh. That was one awful turntable.
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