technics sl 1200 gae

gae, as is : fine can't touch it for 45's.i meant newer orthofon shibata mono .... I have entertaining records but they are not typical  audiophile up front mix.

I don't care about audiophile records, i do collect vintage 45s from the 50s, 60s, 70s and early 80s. GAE is perfect for 45s, Shibata is perfect for vintage 45s, i don't have any mono cartridge, my 45s are stereo, not mono. 

Technics is great turntable, no doubt, stock GAE tonearm is great too. 

Just buy great cartridge if you're looking for improvement and nice phono stage. 

 

vpi make s decent tables, the only thing I do not like is their arms.  They are okay, I think the technics is better.

OP, 

what is is it that you don’t like or want to improve with the GAE?  I own the table.  I would think money would be better spent going after the right cartridge and not trying expensive modifications.  Modding is cool in my book though. 

The man to talk to in the US is Kevin at KAB. He is a real authority on Technics turntables.  I haven't spoken to him in awhile but my guess is that he will suggest a rewire of the arm and the fluid damper.  I think you will find him straightforward about the reasons for these mods.I have looked at the Timestep site and read comments from the owner on chat sites  online.  Let me just say I don't feel 100% confident about what they do.The arm on the 1200G is really good.  If you go with the Timestep arm you will lose the ability to quickly change cartridges.  Since you collect older records (as do I) you won't be able to go between mono and stereo carts very easily.  A fancy steak knife is a wonderful thing but sometimes a Swiss Army knife is of more utility.I agree with tzh21y that the sound of the table will improve after a few hundred hours of run in.

You are limited with a choice of tonearm for SL1200GAE plinth, but you have no limits with SP-10mkII or SP-10R (except for the very short arms), you can use "10.5 or "12 inch tonearm easily.

We've installed 12" arms on that plinth, so not sure what is meant by this comment.
In general though, the new SL1200 would be my choice over any Linn or VPI, price no object, regardless of 33 or 45 RPM.