What's all the fuss about late 70s and earl 80s run of the mill midfi turntables?


My first table was a Garrard SL95-B. It was really nothing to sing about and you had to pay extra for the plastic base. I graduated from that to a Philips GA 212. Thank God it was located on a concrete slab floor. Still nothing special. Then on to a Sony 2251 LA with an SME 2009 tonearm. This was a real upgrade with an Ortofon MC20 cartridge and transformer. I thought I was doing that thing in tall cotton. Then I met Russ Goddard at The Audible Difference in Palo Alto. He told me to bring my setup to his store and we would do a little A-B comparison. After listening for only a minute or two it was obvious My Sony was not any way near a Linn LP 12 of that time. Anyway the point is most of the common tables from people like Garrard, Dual, Marantz, were just imposters to the real thing. I hold no nostalgic emotion to those tables. I was foolish enough to sell my Linn setup when the writing was on the wall around 1999 regarding vinyl. Big mistake!! I sold all my vinyl, my table with an Ittock arm arm and audio technica OC-9 shibata. A SOTA MC Head Amp designed by John Curl (a collectors item today) for $1000.00. Lock me up. I had every cartridge of the day, Koetsu, Supex, GAS, Fidelity Research. My 2 year old son tore the stylus off my Sleeping Beauty Shibata accindently.

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I am usually surprised at how good most of those 70s and 80s ‘consumer grade’ low- and mid-level turntables actually sound. They look like plastic toys and are mostly lightweight and almost flimsy. In that light I am almost always impressed by their performance. 

Wow, I had a Philips 212 - I loved that table. Not that it sounded amazing, it was fine with the AT cartridge I had, but my friends were just so jealous. It was cool looking overall, then with the strobe, and the best, it also had those touch lit buttons. 

Once the buttons didn't light up anymore I sold it and got an Acoustic Research and a Micro Research 2002 cartridge. I might have that cartridge wrong, it's been 30 years now and more upgrades then I want to admit. But that was a great upgrade. 

Yep, I sold many of my records back when CD's came out, got at most $1.00 each for them, luckily I did keep a few and yes, the values have gone way over what I paid.

Why? Records are fun. I'm using it to teach my niece and nephew to listen to music, not just have it running in the background or only with cheap earplugs. Although it took a while before they understood not to hold the records sideways between their fingers! 

My records have appreciated more than my 401k.

Cant believe the revival in vinyl, every record I have is worth more than I paid,