Most hyped turntable, tonearm, and cartridge?

You want to know the truth? Once a very reasonably affordable level is reached there are a whole lot of turntables that are so good that what you will hear is at least as much due to what the turntable is sitting on as the table itself. This goes for the tone arm as well. When it comes to arms, the turntable is to the arm as the shelf and stand are to the turntable. Playing a record sets the whole shebang to vibrating like crazy, and its this vibration of the total rack/table/arm/cartridge system that you hear when playing a record. Not the cartridge. Not the arm. Not the table. Not the rack. The whole thing all together.

That is the truth. This explains why people can feel so strongly that one or another is better. Once you hear the combination produce that magic then of course, if you are the kind of audiophile who doesn’t understand this then you are very likely to pick out one part or another as the one responsible for this great sound. And you will be right. In part. But only in part. Its the whole thing all together that you heard.

Once you figure this out then you can forget all about what is hyped or not, and focus on what really matters- how it works, how it looks, and how it fits in with your intended use. Some guys for example never will mess with VTA other than maybe one time to set it up, if that. If that’s you then VTA on the fly is useless. But if you know what it does and use it, well then VTA is essential and you will never have another arm without it. Like that. And all they hype or lack thereof in the world won’t change that one bit.

ihcho, those people are on another planet. Stay away from antiques. They are antiques for a reason. For 10K there is so much modern equipment that will handily out perform any of that stuff you mention above. In a modern system with solid output down to 20 Hz those turntables are awful. Big heavy arms and low compliance cartridges have a hard time following record irregularities (warps) adding distortion and increasing record wear. 
I am not into romantic sound. I am into accurate sound. With a good system you are better off with modern turntables, tonearms and cartridges. Do your antique collecting on the side. Get into old cars or something.  

Very important i will make a list asap.

@millercarbon, "You want to know the truth? Once a very reasonably affordable level is reached there are a whole lot of turntables that are so good that what you will hear is at least as much due to what the turntable is sitting on as the table itself."


That was certainly my truth when I placed a cheap plastic turntable upon a solid wood rigid open framed table and was taken aback at what I was hearing. A wonderfully open dynamic sound lacking very little other than deep bass!

I guess all turntables must vary in the extent that they are influenced by their environments, but none seem to be totally indifferent.

OK maybe this one real got close.

Yes, it’s that AR hammer test once again.

As for most hyped. Easily the LP12 through the late 1980s, at least in the UK. You really had to be there to see some of the messianic nonsense written about this latter day AR and the rebadged Audio Technica cartridges it often came with.

https://youtu.be/1rgK0YMsJXM