THE GOLDEN AGE OF TURNTABLES!

Dear edgewear, ''rational obsession''? You are very .kind to me(grin).

edgewear, I'm not upset at all. I can understand the romantic notions people have with the past. I drive an old 911 because it has a character missing in the new cars. I also have a new one which from a performance standpoint is far superior but the old one is more fun to drive. As far as Hi Fi is concerned it is all about performance and in general new equipment outperforms old equipment. Most of us start with what we can afford and then start climbing the ladder one piece at a time. If I bought an old TD 124 it would be for display purposes only. I couldn't use it. The rumble would drive my subwoofers crazy and my house would shake apart. I'm actually not kidding. I would never buy a used cartridge. I don't even re tip them. The next cartridge is always up the ladder, more expensive and better in every way. The old ones just sit in a drawer. I do like having several cartridges now that I can afford it. It is like having several cars. But unlike cars with cartridges I never look down only up. Same with turntables. The only reason to get a new one is to improve performance. Why would somebody trade in a turntable for one that does not perform as well? Because it has a classy old patina to it? The golden age? Most of those turntables are not made today because nobody wants them. You going to trade in your Rega for an old Dual? The people who bought Duals are the ones who now just stream. It is purely a convenience thing for them. 
If your thing is old stuff wonderful, but don't tell me your buying that stuff because it sounds or works better. There are other motives at play so you tell me! There may be some older stuff that if cared for may work passably well in modern systems like an old SME tonearm or a 1980s SOTA Sapphire. You can modify old Acoustats and get them close to SOTA and I am sure there are others. Some equipment can be totally rebuilt and taken up to modern spec like they do with some tape decks. They have to as there are very few if any new ones. They have been replaced by the hard drive. 
I think the intent should be getting the best sound you can within your budget. If you can find an older piece that will outperform a new piece at the same price point then by all means go for it. I use speakers from the 1980's because the only speaker I like better is the Sound Labs 845 which I can't quite afford yet. 
It is all about the music.

I drive an old 911 because it has a character missing in the new cars.

Life is good?

 I also have a new one which from a performance standpoint is far superior but the old one is more fun to drive.

Luxury life must be even better 

If I bought an old TD 124 it would be for display purposes only. I couldn't use it. The rumble would drive my subwoofers crazy and my house would shake apart. I'm actually not kidding.

There is a list of outstanding Direct Drive turntables above from @edgewear and you are here again with something else (like that old Thorens). Bad example. 

I would never buy a used cartridge. I don't even re tip them. The next cartridge is always up the ladder, more expensive and better in every way.

Very nice, the key point is "more expensive" which is always better in your imagination. The "high-end" industry is still alive because people like you can throw $20k for a cartridge? You are there or going there slowly? If it's good for you - it's fine, but do not expect everyone will do that (for many reasons). 

I must admit that audiophiles and music lovers are not always rich people to play games with those cartridge or turntable manufacturers who asking a price of space shuttle for their audio gear. 

But those people have ears and they are able to separate some BS from outstanding equipment from the past @mijostyn  

To my surprise many modern high-end manufacturers have ZERO experience with top of the line vintage models of turntables or even cartridges. It was impossible to buy many of them in the past because it was analog world, and now when we can find almost everything with the internet from any part of the world, those people are not interested in vintage high-end. Instead they are offering something else and promising us a better quality. They are judging about vintage gear using their memories from the 70's/80's, but we're suing vintage cartridges with modern phono stages and modern speakers etc.   

@mijostyn, actually we may not be that far apart. I also made gradual upward steps over many years to increase performance level. From 1990’s Krell amplification (KRC HR + KPE Ref and FPB600) to 2000’s Boulder (1008, 1010 and 1060) and from 1990’s Magnepan MG20 to 2010’s MG20.7. In these cases newer really was better. As a digital source I use a 1990’s Krell 20i cd player, because digital is not my priority and this machine can still pretty much hold its own, even against latest generation players.

However, I did go back to the ’old stuff’ with vinyl playback. Why? I had worked my way up to a TW acoustic Raven GT SE with Black Night battery drive, Reed 3P tonearm and vdHul Colibri XPW African Blackwood (the one with the platinum coils, no longer available). This combo sounded great, but the TW gave persistent speed issues (even after two service trip to the manufacturer) and I lost confidence in that table.

I decided to try my luck with a Micro RX-1500 and simply couldn’t believe my ears. Initially it took some effort (adding a stainless steel one-on-one replica of the RT-2000 plateau, CU-180 copper mat and R-15 mass loaded stainless steel feet) but the performance with the same Reed/vdHul combo was eye (or ear) popping. This definitely didn’t sound like a backward step in any way. I haven’t missed that TW for even a ’micro’ second.......

The Micro also invited the possibility to add more tonearms (and cartridges), a prospect I simply couldn’t resist. Enter the FR-64s and Audiocraft AC-4400 tonearms and a whole range of cartridges from Ortofon, FR, Dynavector, Ikeda, Takeda, etcetera. All ’old stuff’ from the 20th century. To my disbelief I noticed these ’oldies’ could perform at the same level as the Reed/vdHul reference, played on the same Boulder/Magnepan system. I started to see a pattern.....

So this is not some ’nostalgia for the old folks’, but an truly open minded comparison on a level playing field. No mistake, I still love my Reed/vdHul set up, which is still considered reference grade by many so called experts, but I can equally enjoy many of the vintage arm/cartridge combinations I listen to. In some cases even more so.