Reason for buying old/classic turntables

Audiofeil,

What's your 69?

It's really a question of whether the highest forms of modern technology are being applied to tt development at all. Perhaps the Monaco Grand Prix tt is an example that would tend to answer the question in the affirmative, but there are not too many others in the same ballpark. I guess I would add the Raven and Brinkmann products from Germany and the Saskia, the Walker and the Teres/Galibier efforts in this country. Possibly Transrotor and maybe a few others (Caliburn) could be included. These are all megabuck products.

Megabuck doesn't mean the best performance. There are two examples realized right here on Audiogon... A Brinkmann that was smoked by a Garrard 301 and a Walker Proscenium that was outdone by a Technics.

I think it's funny how some people think that the engineers of (for instance) Garrard 301s, 401s, and Lencos were greater at engineering turntables than anyone, and that the quality of those machines can't be touched. If those engineers knew so damn much about turntable engineering, don't you think they would have figured out that they would have worked so much better in a properly designed plinth, for crying out loud? They simply got lucky.

04rdking,
That was not directed at you... I understand what you're saying.

I just acquired a Garrard 301 and have been reading everything I can about them as I look into its mechanics. People repeatedly put these things up on a pedestal and tout them as some fine piece of British engineering not to be touched today. Puh-lease. These things are crude at best. If it sounds great then, well, great. I'm going to use it. I just really believe that it was an accident that these tables work well with modern cartridges, arms, and plinths. HI-FI wasn't even around when these things were engineered, was it?

Calipers are no match for computers and CNC equipment. That's wishful thinking.

Calipers are used for measuring things during and after machining (and still used today). CNC machines do the machining. Why are you comparing the two? They couldn't possibly be used for more different things.

And for the record, CNC only refers to how the machines are controlled. CNC in itself implies no particular precision, tolerance, etc. I don't know, but it sounds like you're just using words you've heard.