Buying a new TT today

Thanks and for the $25 word I just learned. Good to know it will be obvious.

It may be subtle, but if starts sounding different, have it looked at. 

I was typing on my phone, so my answers were kind of short.  The long version of the story about the diamond falling off was that I bought the MC-Two Special second hand.  When I mounted it and set it up, it sounded horrible.  That's when I took a close look and saw there was no diamond on the cantilever.  I notified the seller and they refunded my money and said they didn't want the cartridge returned.  That's when I decided to look into having it rebuilt.  At the time the person representing Van Den Hul was someone on Florida.  I contacted him and found out the rebuild was the same cost as what I paid for the cart., so I figured why not.  It took a bit (ok, a lot) longer than I was told it would, but was worth it at the end of the day.  I think you'll have a better and more professional experience with VPI than I did.  I wonder if A.J. is still doing the rebuilds.  I believe he's in his 80's.

Let’s not keep hyping the great vintage tables and cartridges so much. It just pushes the prices higher for us. Best to just not argue with people so much and let them buy their cheap belt drives and let them find their path to better sound on their own.

No one is talking about cheap belt drives. That is Chak's argument. He thinks the Technics new DD table is a better value than the more expensive belt drive tables. Cheap belt drives without external power supply units have a harder time keeping the speed constant.

BTW- I just saw VPI coming out with a 40th anniversary direct drive table, so once again we see that the technology doesn't matter, it's the design and build of the specific product. I do disagree with Chak that the exception to that rule is that MC carts are GENERALLY better than MMs. That technology seems to be better from all that I've read and heard, especially if you have a good phono stage.

The right way to compare MC and MM is to buy a turntable with two tonearms and an MM/MC phono stage. If both cartridges carefully selected and matched to the arms then it will be impossible to say which one is better (MM or MC). But most likely MC will cost twice as much that MM. And being cheaper MM has user replaceable stylus (even with exotic cantilever and stylus tip). The situation with MC depends on who will fix the stylus/cantilever when your diamond is worn, after first refurbishing (if it’s not done by manufacturer or original cartridge designer) it can be serious degradation of sound especially for an exotic cartridges when someone will put something else instead of original designers choice. So first retip/refurbishing can ruin the sound of very nice LOMC. It will never happen with MM if the user can change the stylus with the next backup (original) sample.

@sokogear did you read this ?