Empire Turntables New in Box-Worth Anything?

Gregadd, Ralph Karsten of Atma-sphere heavily modifies an Empire 208 or similar earlier Empire model. This is the turntable that he uses at the CES.

Here is the link: modded 208

Now *that* is a belt drive...

I am puzzled by the way that the spring-suspended table and arm is criticised vs the hard-mounted design. When I bought an Empire 598 it replaced a hard-mounted Rec-O-Cut and pretty good arm (of a brand that I don't remember). The Rec-O-Cut and arm were secured to a massive bluestone base. The improvement with the Empire was very great. I think the reasons were:

1. Suspended design. I could bump the platter/arm assembly so that it bounced up and down, and the LP would play on with no problem, because they moved together.

2. Movement did not affect the arm because it was staticly balanced. Downforce was applied by a clock spring.

3. I think the belt drive was better than the idler wheel.

4. The magnetic device to pick up the arm at the end was neat.

My recollection of Empire tables was that the arm was not as
good as the table. I believe the arms were spring loaded for
dialing in stylus pressures and were somewhat inaccurate and
variable after set. But, they look nice. .... CEM

carl_e_miller@sbcglobal.net...Application of VTF by a spring was one of the BEST features! It meant that the arm was not unbalanced, and so was quite insensitive to vibration. (Will two audiophiles ever agree?)