Inexpensive Good Vintage Turntables?

Having been a long term AR table owned and then a VPI and now Linn owner… the VPI and Linn  are in completely different leagues. 
 

@cd318 the cult - superb way of putting it. I think the Roksan and Alvin Golds review of it then the Pink Triangle taught us there was another way. Hi Fi World were the magazine to open our eyes to what we missed out on with its classic section. It’s where I discovered the Martin Bastin Garrard 401 and all the Japanese DD’s.

As I’ve said I have heard good LP12 but it’s not the only way to skin a cat. Experience and age has taught me that anyone claiming there’s is the best is an imbecile - unless u have a Rockport Sirius…

I will shout out that I bought a Townshend Elite Rock 2 for only 400ukp with arm and cart about 8 years ago. They’ve shot up in the used market but are simply sensational 

My first good turntable was an AR XA. It had a good suspended subchassis design (the first in history), a good machined platter, but a terrible tonearm (the later XB just had a different base, and an arm cuing control). I replaced the table with a Thorens TD-125 Mk.2, which had an almost identical suspended subchassis design, but unfortunately also an overly-complicated electronic motor controller, which gave me nothing but trouble. I got rid of it and got the cheaper TD-150, which was very similar to the AR but with a much better arm.

In the 1980's AR re-introduced their table (basically the same as the XA in design, renamed the ES-1) fitted with a Jelco-sourced arm if so desired (it was offered without as well). It's a fine budget table, but for the price it brings on the used market you can get a VPI HW-19 Mk.2 or 3, imo a better choice.

@lohanimal 

"I think the Roksan and Alvin Golds review of it then the Pink Triangle taught us there was another way. Hi Fi World were the magazine to open our eyes to what we missed out on with its classic section."

I used to read Hi-World but not regularly and must have missed that review by the late Alvin Gold. I do recall him having a memorably succinct writing style though.

As for the Pink Triangle, wasn't that surely one of the most unfortunate victims of the power of journalism?

Apparently one review which mentioned speed issues more or less put paid to what might have been the best belt drive turntable of its generation.

Clearthinker, You wrote, "You must be a scientist as, like most of the others, you have not evaluated the causes of environmental damage correctly.  By far the most costly elements of product production and use are the creation and disposal of the product.  So to retain an already extant product in use for a longer period and not replace it with a new one, however environmentally friendly its producer claims it to be, will always trump the production of a new item.  When will scientists understand this very simple fact?" You go on to cite electric cars as a specious example of apparent environmental harmlessness, because, you say, the car has to be thrown away when the battery loses capacity.

I don't know where you got this idea about you vs "scientists".  Any scientist worthy of the name does indeed recognize that the calculation of environmental friendliness or lack thereof is a product of many complex considerations.  As regards electric cars, one of them would certainly be issues you mention.  However, taking Tesla as a prime example, you are incorrect on nearly all your assumptions.  Batteries in the original Tesla autos have a 200,000 mile life expectancy, and at the end of life, they certainly are replaceable by the factory or by any competent local electric vehicle mechanic.  Current Tesla car batteries have a life expectancy of 500,000 miles.  They are also re-cyclable at end of life. Most gasoline engine cars are rusting in the junk yard by or before they've done 200,000 miles. Both types of car can be crushed and recycled, when it comes to that.

There is definitely a place for wood in analog audio.  Wood can be an excellent component of a plinth built for constrained layer damping, in layers with other types of materials. In that application, infinitesimal changes of shape are first of all constrained by other tightly packed layers and second of all not important.  Wood tonearms are perhaps controversial, but I've owned a Reed for about a decade, and it is still straight as an arrow per a laser measurement. (We don't put our tonearms outside in the weather, so concerns about warpage are way overblown in my opinion.)