Most hyped turntable, tonearm, and cartridge?


Which turntable, tonearm, and cartridge do you think are most hyped?

One of my friends who owns Garrard 301, Thorens 124 and EMT ?? told me that those three vintage turntables are as good as one can get for the price points, beating most modern turntables costing under $10K. However, I've also read that Garrard 301 is over hyped.
My friend also insists that Ortofon RMG 309 tonearm and the original SPU Silver Meister (not MKii) are best for Garrard and Thorens. I wonder whether the Ortofon arm and SPU cartridge are over rated. 
Your thought?
ihcho
For me, if I had 10k to spend on a turntable and arm, I like the VPI Prime Signature with their Fat Boy gimbaled tonearm. (Just over 9k)
I have a 1983 Technics SL 1200 MKII with a few of the KAB mods.
It doesn't compare to my Super Prime Scout.
You could try at least Technics SP-10 mk2 without any mods, this is high-end Technics. Their SP-10 mk3 is ultra high-end.
The new one is SP-10R (drive about $7k) and SL-1200GAE turntable ($4k).

Even $900 SL-1200 mk7 is completely different turntable comparing to your old $400 hi-fi SL1200 mk2 @rushfan71




Back in the '70's when a lot of this started, we had a lot of different TTs in my shop.  Garrard was a joke back then--plastic and sold for about $40.00, I think.  Thorns' tables were hard to get for a while.  I think they were a couple hundred bucks...also belt drive as I remember and OK, but not perfect.

Linn-Sondek was supposed to be great.  It was a belt drive, as I remember, and had a lot of issues and kept putting out changes to fix them whenever a reviewer would point something out.

Technics came out with DD tables and all of a sudden, the ultimate tables were born!!  I forget all the numbers--an SP-10, maybe, was $500 dollars and pretty good, but of course the audiophile world had lots of negative things to say about them.  Shure arms (SME something--I forget all the numbers) were about $100.00-$125.00 and had removable head shells, which was judged to be a no-no back then for all kinds of reasons.  I forget all the arms with fixed head shells that came out about then. 

The physicists said the straight-arm tables were the best as they tracked better, but B&O limited theirs to their own cartridges, which were mediocre at best as I remember.  Another guy had a straight arm that you could put on a table, but it did not work very well.

Moving coil cartridges with various amps were in favor--Decca, Satin, Supex, Grado, etc.  AT and Shure still had MM ones and their prices started rising.  They were afterthoughts until then, I think.

My fav was the Transcriptor.  We had one in the window to attract people.  It never actually WORKED, of course, but it sure was pretty with its SME arm, etc.  I think we actually sold a couple of them--probably as art objects!

I would guess Panasonic Technics tables are still pretty good.  They started making them for discos so you could move the platter with your finger--MK 10 or 11 or something, and became a bit expensive.  I still think I sold more B&O with the tracking arm than any, but I forget.  I sold a lot of Thorns tables as well. Cassette tapes (METAL!) were big, as were Nakamichi tape decks, which broke but worked great when they did.

I would suggest going with Panasonic if they are still being made.

Cheers!
At Millercarbon:  best response that I have ever heard from you.  Turn tables are a mechanical nightmare.  Some love em, some don't; if you do then I'm happy for you.
I would suggest going with Panasonic if they are still being made.


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