A "house sound" among turntable manufacturers ?


Some Audiogoners have had the opportunity and good fortune to partake of "shoot-outs" or listening comparisons between various turntables. Others have had fairly long term experiences with several individual tables. I think it would be most informative, interesting and perhaps helpful if any of you could please share some of your impressions about the personalities of tables you have heard. Maybe some sort of consensus can emerge regarding a characteristic sound among competing brands. Some suggested areas for consideration might be: tending toward warm, neutral or cool; projected image size; softer or sharper presentation; midrange presence; top end extension; bottom end weight and extension; dynamic range; transparency and soundstaging. Thanks very much to all for your contributions.
opus88

Hi Opus88,

Just to get things started, please look at this site and see if this is the general direction you want to go:

http://www.audiorevelation.com/cre/information.php?info_id=8

Best regards,

Mark
This will be extremely difficult to gauge, cause cartridge, Arm combos will have huge effects on any given table.. A new cart. can take you from Cold, Studio image, to Big warm image with sloppy bottom end....Or perfect everything for your listening tastes Etc... I mean really the best table is one that can do it all depending on the combo setup.

Your question will be pretty tuff to seriously answer, mostly a good table will consist of good ergonomics, speed control, build quality that really keeps everything quiet, and of course better bearings, tonearms all come into play.

Example a rega is a pretty thin and wimpy looking and sometimes sounding table.. A notingham is beastly heavy, and not quite as ergonomically stable table.. A Vpi is somewhere between the 2, also by design between them. So for the cost it comes down to what you really can justify for the money in your own mind, and all of them could sound great in their own way.

I will say this, The new MMF 9.1 by music hall is a giant killer.. For the money I believe nothing is as nice, and this thing to me sounds like what analog should sound like, But Music hall tables are extremly Bottom weighted and go to extremly deep bass levels, so good table isolation with decent platform is really needed. So I guess for BASS I can say the Music hall designs seem to have the most abundance of it from all that I have heard.

Anyway, I am not saying any specific table is better or worse, but dollar for dollar you need to choose who gives the best in your performance mind. Its actually much easier to give an idea on what the CD players sound like, cause for the most part beyond changing a power cord they all stay the same in a given system, but too many factors effect a turntable via VTA, VTF, Isolation, Arm, Cartridge Combo... To many variables from system to system setup for anybody to say their Table sounds the same as the other guys with the same setup. But you might get a little idea if nothing else.

06-26-07: Undertow
I will say this, The new MMF 9.1 by music hall is a giant killer...
Interesting. Here's a side-by-side comparison where a half-as-expensive rig killed the giant killer:

http://www.tnt-audio.com/sorgenti/technics_sl1200_2_e.html

It was a Technics SL1200 with KAB mods. After a 3-turntable shootout, this is the turntable the reviewer bought.