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My Turntable Collection.....

B&O 8002 with an MMC1 and a Sound-Smith SMMC1.

Dual 1219 with some sort of Grado Gold Series.

My favorite - a Garrard Lab 80 MkII with a Grado Silver-Blue Series.

Then a Garrard Type A strictly for 'kitsch' factor. I fitted it with a Grado DJ cartridge because of the weight of the arm.

The Lab 80 fully functions, cycles automatically and drops records properly ( I know its sacrelige {sp?] but I have 12" singles) It's really hard finding a fully functional Lab 80. I really like the heavy platter and the sound that comes out of it.

1219 is a great unit, touted to be comparable to the better units of current day but I'm sorta indifferent to it.

The B&O works fine but the sound is a bit edgy - probably a combination of the light platter and the cartridge.

Aside from the B&O, these units represent things that I lusted after in my youth but was somehow unattainable. A brand new Lab80 or Dual 1219 was a real big deal.

Thoughts or comments on this? Just rambling really.
128x128tobaccoleafpie
morgenholz
61 posts
 
Tobaccoleafpie, I was just setting one up, so this is a little diversion for me. I will now expose what a retro hermit I am:
Rega P3 (modified)
Rega Planar 25
Thorens TD-2001
Harman/Kardon T65C
Harman/Kardon T55C
Harman/Kardon hk720
Denon DP-62L
Denon DP-60L
Kenwood KD-750
Kenwood KD-650 (two of 'em)
Kenwood KD-5070
Technics SL-1200mk2

I had been a closet audiophile since around 1975, but my paper route and saving for a car was not compatible with acquisition of the high-end Kenwood equipment that I lusted for. I bought a quality cassette deck and integrated amp, built some acoustic suspension speakers, and taped all of my friends' LPs. This was my system until I met my wife-to-be in college. She and I thought that H/K
gear was really classy and built a system together, which rotated between my and her apartments. This one system served until I completed graduate school and began acquiring the stuff I had wanted that whole time.
As can be seen, I equally enjoy heavy japanese direct-drives and neoclassic belt-drives. You will obseve that about half of my tables have auto-lift, which I consider essential-- There's nothing worse than being totally relaxed by the last 23 minutes of music, half a glass of good cab still in the glass, and deciding whether to let the stylus grind away in the lead-out groove. The KD-5070 is fully automatic and is interesting in that Kenwood used two motors to drive the heavy platter and arm mechanism separately-- sound quality does NOT suffer.
jaybo
4,478 posts
 
retro rules
mechans
3,048 posts
 
Morgenholz: Can you tell me why vintage tables frquently have cue down failure? I have about 7-8 linear tracking retro tables. All Japanese i believe but two are OEMed Sherwoods. Of the lot I can rely on 3. My best are in permanet arm up freeze. They are a Technics SL-10 and a Nikko that is as heavy as a tank.
I just don't understand they all work fine for a short while then have this problem.
To address the orginal poster I say if you like it who cares. It is your ears and mind that matter not someone elses. That aside my retro tables at the moment are dormant . I use semi acceptable to the High end crowd TTs. I am not a died in the woll vinylphile. The sound is great but what a pain! without automatic lift or stacking. The sound in my case is better with the latter day TTs I think it's the cartridges mainly. It could also be all the mumbo jumbo technical Wow and Flutter being damped to death.
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