vintage turntables?

Some excellent links.
Thanks everybody!

James1969- The economy of scale is gone and so is the mass market subsidy. Those companies would elect to use exotic materials and they would machine to preposterous precision. If they did it. Which they won't. Ever.

The market is too small for a giant like that to be bothered. That's why the companies making most turntables today are able to stay in business. They are able to fly under the corporate radar because this market segment is just too fringey for the big guys to bother with.

so...aside from the technics 1200's and the like, any other good model reccomendations for vintage dd turntables to keep an eye out for? as far as belt drives go, im keeping my eyes on the td-160 for now, and the ar tables too, i love the way they look more than anything. i know jvc, kenwood and alot of the other japanese brands are good names, but what models specifically should i watch for?

Macrojack, I think it is misleading to state "the Technics SP-10 was originally designed for DJ work". I believe it was designed for studio application, which included radio DJs, but not club DJs as we think of them today -- mixin' and scratchin' and all that!

Stan Ricker told me he suggested the SP-10 motor drive application for disc cutting in mastering studios and apparently many were used for that. But the SP-10 was also offered as a consumer product, not just for professional studios. And the SP-10 Mk2, Mk2A, and Mk3 upgrades were sold as both studio and consumer products.

With the introduction of CDs in 1982, many radio stations began switching from vinyl almost immediately because of easier handling and cueing plus less storage space than LPs. This was about the time of introduction for the SP-10 Mk 3 so studio demand never really developed and not many were built. It was also quite expensive for a consumer product. Thus came the end of the higher quality DD tables.

As an aside, a friend just purchased a Teres rim drive motor and controller for use with his VPI Scout. Apparently the VPI rim drive only fits the Super Scoutmaster and TNT. Anyway, the rim drive on his Scout is a revelation -- it is quieter, offers better bass, more spaciousness, and simply pulls you along with the music in a way the original belt drive cannot. Which brings us back to the OT, some of the better vintage DD and rim drive tables should not be considered outmoded and can stand up to today's performance standards when set up correctly.

Chuckelator, the Thorens 160 is a belt drive, quite a different animal from the TD 124 rim drive that Art Dudley restored and wrote up. So, visual appearance aside, while many vintage belt drive tables can provide satisfying performance, what a few others and myself are suggesting is the best performance may be found in the Technics SP-10 Mk 2, 15, and 25, the larger and heavier Denons, the Kenwood 500 and 600 series with their composite plinths, perhaps selected Pioneer or JVC models (I'm not familiar with any of them), or a rim drive such as a Lenco. An archive search will turn up lots of information on any of these.

Other quality tables such as the SP-10 Mk3, Kenwood L-07D, Garrard 301 and 401, Thorens 124, EMT, Nakamichi, and some Denons could be outstanding but they all have followings and therefore are more expensive than many of us would consider.