Tell about your experience with your old Audio-Technica SL-1200s..

As far as the Goodwill LPs - yeah, you won’t find much if anything good if they’ve already been put on the racks. The only way you have a chance is grab them when they’ve been wheeled out from the back and are sitting around, waiting for someone to put them on the racks.  The serious people watch for the carts to come out and pounce on them.  

I tried to get the Zupreme to work, but never could get it dialed in. It sounds so much better now with a silver Technics head shell that I’m afraid to touch anything until I figure out why. I spend a good amount trying to get all of the adjustments right. 

All these shells are aluminum, the main difference is weight and wires. Zupreme made by Jelco. Some other headshells made of magnesium, titanium, wood… One of the cheapest and best new headshells is AT Technihard series (fully adjustable).

There are so many great headshells made in the 70s/80s, my favorite are AudioCraft headshells, they made heavyweight too. Grace carbon-fiber headshells (HS-6) and Grace HS-8 are amazing. Ikeda headshells with overhang adjustment are very nice. Stax made lightweight headshell with azimuth/overhang adjustment. Denon made some nice headshells, Sony made nice headshells. Pioneer made carbon shell. This is the one from Kenwood for example. Technics made Boron-Titanium headshell for the EPA-100 mkII tonearm (unfortunately missed on my tonearm). There are many others. Basically, every manufacturer made their own headshells or ordered them from other manufacturers.

@bikerbw If it ain't broke, don't fix it!  Enjoy the music.  

Off topic, but Chakster asked what motor is used in the VPI HW40.  Brushless Direct ThinGap motor, manufactured by ThinGap LLC of Ventura, California.  This is a world class motor.  For those who might be interested let me share some additional experience that might be pertinent and of interest here.  I compared the VPI with the competitiveTechnics, an Air Force One, and a Technics on an aftermarket plinth using a Shroeder arm.  All were stellar.  The VPI sounded better than the Technics by way of the arm (I suspect), but the Technics arm is much easier to set up, a clear trade-off and depending on priorities a decision could go either way.  In the USA the VPI retails for over $3,000 less than the Technics.  The Technics on the custom plinth with the Shroeder arm sounded better than the VPI be a small margin, but retails for between $4k and $5K more than the Technics here in the USA of upwards of $8K more than the VPI.  The Air Force One sounded perhaps different than the VPI and with it's vacuum hold down probably would prove the most versatile with damaged or warped records.  Although in an attempt to distinguish between the VPI periphery ring and weight vs. the vacuum hold down several us gave up the attempt and called it a draw.  This on one record.  The Air Force One retails for about $3K more than the Technics/custom plinth/Shroeder setup.  At this point let me say that the differences between all three of these turntables were not great.  Very slight differences is sound, ear straining in fact. They are all wonderful and would make any record collector one happy camper.  Ergonomically, which is subjective of course, I personally think Technics is the best.  But, bringing this back to this thread, none of these very expensive turntables is significantly better in any particular way to my SL1200GAE.  In fact, the G series would be my first recommendation and my first choice for anyone looking for a first class turntable.  Yes there are better sounding turntables, but only marginally better and at great addional cost.  No less an authority than Mikey Fremer has said as much comparing turntables costing six figures.  Yes they sound better, a little bit, but only a little bit.  The more I think about it the more impressed I am with the G series.