Pauly, "It is easier to write upon the water, than to teach a fool anything" (Khalil Gibran), a fool being someone who refuses to learn what he does not want to learn, meaning he will never learn anything of value and so remain a fool. The quotes for the most part were from the owners of said 'tables, or have you a hard time reading? Owners, it goes without saying, are far more familiar with the performance/sound of their turntables than reviewers who spend a short period with them. And what makes you think that reviewers, who MUST always tout Progress (or there would be no reason to buy new things) and thus guarantee enough advertising to ensure survival of the magazine (a conflict of interest of ever there was one), are a better source than the owners of the 'tables who have sunk their cash and egos into them? In fact, it is likelier that these folk would find for their chosen 'tables than for the cheap'n cheerful Lencos, and so admit their error, human nature being what it is (you are a prime example of such personal weaknesses). There is a very large difference between the fellow who listened to various 'tables and you: he was willing to learn, and did hear a Lenco. I have in fact heard the Lenco against a large variety of high-end 'tables (I have even had the temerity to buy and rebuild a Technics SP10 MKII to give DDs the best chance I could so I could decide for myself based on actual experience, rather than rely on hearsay), having owned a few highly-regarded ones myself over the years. This is true as well of those I quoted and many more I did not. Your arguments fit into my classification - "The gist of all defenses against actual verification so far is that since it contradicts Dogma/belief, then something HAD to be wrong somewhere, this could NOT be accurate, therefore it could not be, period" - thanks for bearing me out on this and providing such a brilliant example. If you decide you want to actually learn something new and throw the closed doors of your mind open (many have done, rethinking their stand), then contact me, I'll be happy to help you find and hear either a properly set-up Lenco or a Garrard.
And for the record, here's an excerpt from a 6moons article by Jeff Day. For context, in comparing a grease-bearing Garrard 301 (that Sugano who designed your beloved Koetsus had the good sense to use both for listening and in the design of the Koetsus) I rebuilt to a Lenco with identical tonearms and cartridges (yes, I actually took the extreme action of actually listening to a Garrard 301, and forming an opinion from actual experience!), I could hear no differences: "The Garrard fills the room with a big, billowing sense of space that extends well outside the location of the speakers, with a deep soundstage that retains naturally sized images that are infused with the breath of life-like humanness. One of the things I've noticed -- and Terry Cain commented on it too -- is that the Garrard has a definite sense of drive & PRaT (pace, rhythm and timing) that brings the music to life. Paul Chamber's bass playing on "Alone Together" has a sense of tautness, propulsion & rhythmic nuance that completely escapes my very fine $8000 Meridian 508.20/Audio Logic 2400 transport/DAC combination. A number of Garrardissimos I have talked to contribute this to the idler wheel design. I don't know if it's the idler wheel or not but the Garrard 301 has the PRaT thing down pat in the best of the English tradition. It's easy to understand why such a great mystique has grown up around the Garrard 301 after spending some time with it. It really is an incredible table. There is rich musicality to the music produced by the Garrard 301. It conveys the mood of the music in fine fashion and with a great sense of correct tonality. Simply put, the Garrard 301 is a tone monster! It's also a rhythm king. You'll always understand the intricacies of the rhythm with this vintage setup. Think of the boring beat of that one-note metronomic bass line that you hear in many recordings with most tables. It's there but it's not much of an inspiration. The Garrard 301 takes that seemingly one-note bass line and infuses into it the musicians' subtle (or not so) stylings in tempo, dynamics, phrasing and harmonic structure to give it feeling. And guess what? The Garrard doesn't just do that with bass, it does it with all the instruments and voices that make up the musical whole to produce a very cohesive & life-like musical experience that oozes emotions. The Garrard also gives a sense of natural burnished warmth and solidity to images. The Garrard conveys the texture of all the components of the music and makes sense of the musical whole. It's also detailed in a very natural-sounding and realistic way. The vintage setup is easy on the ear and has no unnatural edge or glare. On "September Son", Kenny Burrell's guitar intro opens the song and provides the backdrop for when Chet comes in with his trumpet. The two continue to lazily style through the rest of the number. With the Garrard, you get a real feel for the music. You don't just hear the music and admire the sound, you get a glimpse into the emotional makeup of the musicians contributing to it. You understand the music in a way that few other source components can match."
But 6moons is probably not to be counted as evidence by you either, which you will also find some pretext to dismiss. This reminds me of the thread I started a while back, "The High End and Glubglub". This is based on a philosophical discussion on logic: "What he (the skeptic) wants it is logically impossible to supply. But doesn't the logical impossibility of the skeptic's demand defeat his cause? If he raises a logically impossible demand, can we be expected to fulfill it? He says we have no evidence, but whatever we adduce he refuses to count as evidence. At least we know what we would count as evidence, and we show him what it is. But he only shakes his head and says it isn't evidence. But then surely he is using the word "evidence" in a very peculiar way (a meaningless way?), so that nothing whatever would count as a case of it...Might he not just as well say, "There is no glubglub?"..." I have many occasions to trot this out as I have crossed many like you out there in getting the world to go back and have a listen to a discredited technology: whatever the evidence, it is not to be counted as evidence if it contradicts a favoured prejudice. As Stanhifi likes to always write, "this is too easy". Prove me wrong, I have nothing to hide and welcome yet another showdown between a rebuilt Lenco and anything you would like to throw at it. As I wrote long ago at the beginning of my Lenco Challenge, "I throw down the gauntlet" (and 4yanx bravely picked it up, made a serious effort to restore one, compared it to his Nottingham Spacedeck/Graham 2.2/Benz, and sold the Nottingham Spacedeck/Graham 2.2/Benz, and with immense integrity reported his findings on Audiogon, and have many others). None have even matched it so far, in a fair comparison, quality tonearm/cartridge against quality tonearm/cartridge. This might actually stimulate your curiosity.
Anyway, Dvdgreco, ignore these idler-wheel discussions as they don't fit your bill anyway, and concentrate instead on the SL1200 or Regas and others in your price-range.
