I'd like to hear recommendations for Turntables under $5,000

SME Model 10
Michell Gyro SE

Best of the best at just about any price.

The Technics SL-1200GAE is very intriguing to me.  
I have an SME Model 20/2, which is very nice, but four times the cost of the Technics.  At $4K, with rave reviews, it's worth a look.  
Another good one is the Clearaudio Performance.  Great sounding TT!  I used to own one before the upgrade to the SME.  

I own a Thornes TD160 and the best cartridge I ever heard on it was a Grado Sonata Ref wood body ($650). If you want a table that will stay with you forever, I 2nd the J.A. Michell Gyro SE with Techno Arm it is a excellent sounding table. I purchased mine it was a demo paid $3K with arm and have never looked back :-)  Call Needledoctor.


Matt M

The michell gyro se is a great table. The Technics 1200G is a great table.  The SME 10 is a great table, although more expensive.  Listen to the Michell and the 1200G as they are somewhat different in presentation, the 1200g is very accurate and not warm but pretty neutral, the Michell is a little warmer sounding if you like that sound.  I liked them both.  Dont forget the VPI Prime.

invictus, have you ever put an SME V on your Michell?

Refurbished SOTA Nova, refurbished Star, or a new Sapphire are all in that $3K-ish range, but you do have to add an arm. Greatly musical tables that I think are a good value proposition in that range; too often overlooked these days.

@tzh21y I’m running an SME 309 on my Gyro SE and will transfer it to the SME Model 10, whenever I finally get it at the end of this month hopefully.

I have a client who is using an SME V on the Gyro SE.

Both tonearms sound incredible and are a sight to behold and an engineering marvel. I’ll probably upgrade to the V sometime in the future.

Pure van den Hul silver wiring and oil trough improve overall clarity and bass over the 309.

I personally consider V-12 the best tonearm ever made at any price and same applies to the Model 30 turntable.

Second the  Michell Gyro SE

I bet the SME V would sound Killer on the Michell

Let me know what you here differently between the Michell and the SME.  I really liked the michell, better than the SME but it could have been the cartridge as the sme had a benz wood on it and it was an SME 20/3.  The Michell had a ortofon cadenza black with techno arm.

Find yourself a Luxman PD-444, you can buy it under $5000 
This is amazing direct drive turntable for two tonearms, motor made by Micro Seiki, i use two of them, they are superheavy, so i made custom metal racks for them. I like those LUX so much, so i don't use my Technics SP-10mkII anymore. 

more about Luxman PD-444: http://www.thevintageknob.org/luxman-PD444.html 

@nandric you know the price for the plinth for SP-10mkII, this is one of the reason that makes SP-10mkII very expensive. With PD-444 the owner is free of the problem with plinth even with one tonearm (it can be "12 inch tonearm that does not fit into the stock Technics plinth). Custom plinth from respected manufacturers starts from $2500 for Technics (and it is nearly 3 times higher than the cost of the turntable itself).

And BTW if you don’t own Luxman PD-444 you can’t talk about it, you don’t know the quality of this turntable and you’re not Raul :)

I have both (PD-444 and SP-10mkII), so i can talk about it, i prefer Luxmans.

I think the realistic price for Luxman PD-444 is about $2500 without tonearms. But it can be found cheaper. In my opinion this is the best turntable design ever made for reasonable price. 

If you can wait, look at Soundstage Direct website for a demo/openbox prime. Usually around $2,700.

Thanks Everyone for your suggestions. I like the idea of Michelle and found an Orbe I may pursue.  

I don't think one should put the DD candidates in the same basket with the BD candidates, but I do think one can buy a superb turntable for under $5000, if one is willing to buy a used or refurbished unit.  Or any one of the current production turntables mentioned already. First, decide whether you prefer DD or BD.  Then choose among the many very good candidates in these two categories.  That's homework for the OP.

I'll just add the Kenwood L07D (about $3500, usually), and even the Denon DP80 ($1000 for a fully restored one), to the list.  The L07D comes with integral plinth that is state of the art even by current standards and a fine tonearm made for Kenwood by Micro-Seiki.  The DP80 needs a suitable plinth. By the way, I don't know why a DD with motor by M-S is per se going to be top tier; M-S never made a really great DD.  This is not to say that the Luxman is not also superb.

Nandric, You crack me up.  We (in the English speaking world) are taught that Marie Antoinette said "Let them eat cake".  But I suppose the starving French masses could have resorted to cookies as well, in lieu of bread.  But she was Austrian, was she not? Maybe she said "Let them eat sacher torte". That would have put a great strain on all the bakeries in Vienna, I'm sure.

Michell Orbe is a fantastic turntable.

lewm:
You make a point on DD vs BD, but too confining for what I was looking for. I did not want to restrict the audience other than the metrics I gave. If I had defined it further, no Kenwood and no Denon, but I hear you.

Although you didn't explicitly say so, it sounds like you're looking for another BD, like your Thorens or like the VPI turntables you named.  There's nothing wrong with that.

lewm; I just want good sound and my experience is limited so don’t be distracted by what I chose to list,... was just to get the conversation started.

I did not say that I hate tweaking TT's either and I do; just want to set it up and listen as best I can afford to. 

NOTE: Likely a New Thread needed

Can Those Who Said a BIG Yes to Michelle, tell me why I don’t see any great reviews or maybe point me to them?

Can anyone who has Delphi Oracle say it is Excellent?, If so or if NOT can you comment on experiences.

The reason I went with a direct drive table is because i heard it do things that I have not heard a belt drive do outside of mega bucks.  The attack piano and drums are just incredible.  The technics 1200g gives you a lot for the money.  For me it came down to this table and the Michell.  The Michell is excellent and very worthy of the best arm you can afford.  It has a warm and airy sound that is just hard to beat at any price.  The technics does not have the air and soundstage of the Michell but it does certain things very well.  I have had belt drives most of my life because I never heard a direct drive perform like they do now for the money.  Its a tough one for sure.  I still think about that Michell if that tells ya anything.  Analog at its finest for a very reasonable cost.

Nandric, I am sorry that you mistook my estimate of the market value for the Kenwood L07D as an offer to sell at that price.  However, if you outlive me, you are welcome to petition my wife for the right to purchase mine, provided I have not figured out a way to take it with me by then.  If I can leave my bad back here, I will definitely carry the L07D with me to the other side.  Chakster wants $5000 for his L07D?  Which is to ask also, Chakster has an L07D?

The adjective "warm" applied to a turntable suggests to me either a resonant plinth or speed irregularity due to stylus drag or belt creep.  However, I have zero basis for indicting the Michell on any of those grounds, because I never heard one and am not even sure what it looks like.

The VPI turntables/ tonearm are definitely more of a tweakers setup. There is good support at the factory level, and a forum community that can be quite helpful. I owned a Aries Scout and then Scout II, and there was a lot to like about those TTs. I never did love the unipivot tonearm.

I considered the Gyro SE and the Acoustic Signature WOW XL hen replacing the Scout II. Ultimately, I decided on the AS with TA-1000 tonearm (will upgrade to XXL platter when budget allows). Both are excellent ‘tables, and I could be very happy with either.

I’ve owned the Michell with SME V arm, also Bryston BLP-1, both are nice. The SME arm being the deciding factor as to the Gyro being better. All that said, the EAT C-SHARP with arm for $3k is a better table to me. The package deal with Ortofon Quintet Black for $3.5k is really nice also. Easy to set up, beautifully built, great sound. I've moved from VPI HRX to the EAT and feel no let down in performance.  

The aforementioned tables are well regarded but I'd also consider Well-Tempered, Anvil, and Pear Audio.

I had a newer example of the VPI Classic 1 for a short while. It was a big disappointment. 

If you want an easy to deal with turntable that has good reviews, look at the Technics 1200G.  People who own them generally seem very happy with them.

I must say I am very happy with my project xtension 10 turntable with superpack. $4000 and is a beauty

For whatever its worth, I owned a VPI Classic Signature (Classic 3 with 3D tonearm). Nice looking but I was never able to get the performance that I am getting with my rebuilt Lenco 75. The 3D unipivot on the VPI is not as good as one would think. To give you an idea, I had the Dynavector XV-1s on the VPI and a 20 x 2L on the Lenco with a Jelco 12 inch in a A/B test with only the TTs being swapped. The Lenco shredded the VPI. So the next step was to move the XV-1s to the Lenco and it has gone up against TTs of $10K and still performs better than the other TTs because it has the coherence and musicality I was looking for, not to mention detail and resolution as good as any of the best TTs. My Lenco was rebuilt at a cost of approx $5,000 when all was said and done and I am using a PTP plate and bearing with ruby ball for the bearing. I had a hunch it would be better than my VPI when I took the stock Lenco and plugged it in to my system and it already sounded pretty good using a simple empire MM cartridge that came with the Lenco which I bought for $400. So you don't have to spend $5,000 like I did to get good sound out of a Lenco 75 or 78.Also, my friend owns a TD 124 which he has rebuilt and he swears the Lenco is superior but I have never heard it so I can't say for sure. Good luck!

I found a VPI Ares3 with the super platter last year and without a tone arm; the previous owner had a Dynavector tone arm which he didn’t wish to part with. The TT came with the arm board drilled for the Dynavector. I picked up a SME Series IV, which is basically the same as the Series V only without a couple of features which I don’t really feel I need. I machined the arm board in my Bridgeport mill to accept the SME with the elongated slot for HTA and made the installation after a fair amount of work.

Just for the fun of seeing how this would compare to my vintage Marantz 6300 with a vintage Audio Technica AT15ss super shibata and a NOS stylus, I removed the AT15ss and moved it over to the Ares3/SME IV. This is a very high end MM cartridge which sounded fabulous in the Marantz, but I wanted to see how much the TT could do. I was blown away! I could hear instruments I didn’t know were there, literally. The bass was far more powerful, the mid range popped and the sound stage expanded up higher and wider. Plus there is zero, I mean zero feedback from high bass levels or foot steps.

However I should say that I did modify the feet on the Ares3: I removed the useless aluminum conical feet which in my opinion do almost nothing for reducing feedback and replaced them with 4 of the SVS Iso-feet sold for subwoofers. These are medium soft durometer rubber doughnuts set into a metal cup with a hole in the middle for a machine screw. I drilled out the hole to accept a rubber shouldered grommet which is about a half inch diameter and then installed the 1/4 20 machine bolt up through the center of the grommet so that the head of the bold snugged up on the rubber shoulder and made no direct contact to the metal cup. I also cut a 1/4 thick neoprene 2 inch circle out of a mouse pad and put that between the metal cup and the underside of the TT base. I can actually use my knuckles and knock on the surface of the table the TT sits on while playing and no sound passes to the Cartridge.

Total investment in the above was $3200 (all parts are in mint condition). Original cost of all components new was around $9K. If you can find a good deal on an older VPI, a super platter and an SME high end arm, do it!
BTW,  VPI will machine you a proper arm board for the SME if you don't have the equipment to do it yourself.

The SL-1200G is an excellent table, and if your budget is 'under $5000' but not including an arm, its possible to mount different arms on the SL 1200.

We've mounted 12" Triplanar arms on the SL 1200G with excellent results. IMO the platter pad and arm are the weak aspects of the SL-1200, but the 'table itself is one of the best made today at any price.

Luxman 171 A. 

The 1200g arm is a redesign made of magnesium.  Some of the better arms today are made out of magnesium.  There may be better arms out there, however this arm sounds great with cartridges priced at 4K and up.  So with that being said, you could always get a different arm down the road if you so choose to and you may not. lol.  The 1200 g does things that most belt drives cannot.  Listen to a piano and drums on the 1200G, then go listen to a 10K and up belt drive and see how that works out.  There will always be tradeoffs but it is worth a listen for sure.

I'm surprised that nobody has suggested the Linn Sondek LP12. It is by far the best turntable money can buy. In any universe!

I purchased a VPI Prime TT a year or so, ago. I spent a month trying to isolate the table. (sand box, slate on an inner tube, Maglev feet, isopods, and finally I purchased a Symposium Segue ISO. Which finally got the table to 98% isolated. Not a sound with the needle on a stationary record and 75% volume. nothing got to the speakers. I have to say this is when they first came on the market and VPI is a great company regarding customer service. I actually got 2 emails from Mark about the problem. I could always hear something not right at med to high volume levels. I kept the table a month or so and finally gave up. I am just not a fan of the 3D arm. I would have to go for the Mitchell Gyre or a Clearaudio Performance DC. The Mitchell seems to have better isolation which is very important.

I don't think you can avoid listening to the new Technics 1200(both of them), before you decide on a turntable.  Just on YouTube, I found its presentation to be a viable alternative to other presentations(from other turntables). And I am someone who didn't care for older DD's at all.

atmasphere - Lets say I wanted to put a 9 inch triplanar arm on the 1200G.  would I still be able to close the dustcover?

You can get the best Well Tempered Labs turntable for around 5k. Some people are put off by their looks and/or design. They do deliver top notch sound and not as "fiddly" as some people think. IMO

Thanks, I'll check it out. 

I would recommend the PolyTable SUPER12 by George Merrill.  Link: http://hifigem.com/PolyTableSUPER12.html
Check it out!