Reason for buying old/classic turntables

Ketchup -

The old Garrard, Thorens, Lenco, and even the SP-10 were really designed to go into a console of some kind. Some were used in your parents' fruitwood console and some were used in radio station consoles. Not everything from that period of time is revered today, just the statement stuff like Empire and the professional tools like those mentioned above.

All of the tables under discussion pre-date high end audio as we know it and they certainly predate the use of booming, self-powered subs in small rooms. I'm not sure that they needed the isolation required today.

In any event, it isn't really about absolute best performance. The vintage stuff is great because it is still reasonably affordable and you can't say that about comparable modern stuff.

The common comparison being made in this thread by people who are fans of "vintage" TTs is that AFTER new plinths, modern isolation platforms, ensuring the bearing is OK (and sometimes putting a new bearing in), adding a modern state of the art arm, wiring, TT mat, cartridge, and phonostage, the "vintage" TT now compares pretty well with what is out there. I don't see anyone saying that the Lenco in stock form smokes anything modern. There are a few TTs from 20-30yrs ago which can hold their own in stock form but they came in the "hi-fi age", some 25yrs after the Garrard 301. I expect, however, that manufacturers of console-bound tables of the 50s and 60s and DD workhorses from the 70s and 80s were not, at the time, intended to be competitive with the top-tier tables 25-50 years later. I believe it is a combination of a lack of development of motors, plus a certain set of fortunate circumstances (used tables are somewhat cheap, people can use their good arms and carts from previous tables, and for the lucky few who can wield tools with some skill, making a plinth worthy of a top-tier table doesn't cost much in terms of materials (and for the same, the pleasure of making it pays for the time). And the result is an excellent table at a lower out-of-pocket cost (usually) than new rivals, which does what we want it to do, which is spin at 33 1/3rpm all day every day and do absolutely nothing else perceptible to the stylus/record interface.

I have had 3 tt's thru here in the past year. My somewhat stock Lenco just happened to be the best sounding, most musical and involving of the bunch. Everyone that heard the 3 says the same.

Is it the best? No. Does it do what I want it to do, and sound damn good at doing it? Yes.

And coincidence of coincidences, I just missed on a Sony PS-X9 which was up for auction... wonder when I am going to see one of those again...

Look, the basic technology of draging a needle through a groove is essentially the same as it was when Edison did it with tin foil. Sure all the stuff is more sophisticated, more refined, better sounding, etc., but those improvements are based mainly on the associated parts: carts, wiring and amplification. A turntable is still just a wheel on a bearing. There is no reason a TT from forty years ago shouldn't sound as good as a table built today. With the possible exception of some of the repeling magnets even the bearings are esentially the same. Its not magic new technology.