Vintage Turntables compared to modern?

I have been happy with my Micro Seiki MR611 for over 20 years. I am thinking of upgrading but not in any real hurry. The main problem is that to get a decent improvement I will need to spend thousands.

DS

No question in my mind about the superior return on investment found in vintage turntables. While modern belt-drive tables may compete in the area of ultimate performance, they do not compete at all in "bang for the buck" comparisons.
In the days when my Technics SL-1000 MK II was developed, Technics had a huge volume of mass market turntable sales to fund the R&D needed for such a design and perhaps a million radio stations to sell it to worldwide. Nowadays, no manufacturer in his right mind would invest that level of funding in a project that might, if lucky, sell a couple of hundred units. It just doesn't make any business sense.

Some older ones come close to the modern. I have a VPI rig, $6K worth, with all the tweaks. I also have some older TT's, various Sony and Denon. One Sony often comes close to the VPI, it is 800 biotracer with a grace ruby red, lateral tracking. For friends new to vinyl, I suggest the Denon 47F, which is fully audtomated and with the right cartridge, will sound great. The automated arm on the latter prevents user induced cartridge failure. No need to spend ten times as much.

My dad listened to the same tt for 40 years--the same Garrard 301 as mentioned above. Nice return on investment.

I think it all depends on the tt's being compared. No blanket statement like vintage beats modern, or modern beats vintage is true.

While it may be true that some of the vintage idler arm tables beat some of the modern tables, I doubt they beat them all. A direct comparison of the tt's in the same system is the only means to a worthwhile judgement.

Having said that, my VPI Scoutmaster (Valhalla tonearm wiring, Dynavector 20xl, SDS) sounds much better than my Harman Kardon T60 or totally modded Thorens TD160 (every mod I've seen on the web, plus 3" solid cherry plinth, stock arm and modded Rega RB20-Incognito wiring, Pete Riggle arm stub and counterweight, all new internal wiring with IEC).

I would love to do a direct comparison to a Garrard 301. If anyone living in the Ann Arbor, Mi area is up to one, throw me an email