Reason for buying old/classic turntables

in the 60's, 70's and early 80's the largest consumer electronics companies in the world were spending their R&D money to perfect the tt technology.....particularly in Japan. especially in the area of direct drive systems. you see that Sony, Pioneer, Technics and a few others designed and built some drive systems mostly better than any modern tt drive system. to match or surpass these drive systems is pretty much (with a couple of exceptions) out of the question based on the economies of scale of today's tt makers. it is easier and cheaper to design a belt driven tt for small makers.

the problem with those 'vintage' tt's was their case design, arms, cartridges and phono stages. all those 'systems' had dramatic limitations which restricted performace.

if you take these superior drive systems; install them in a modern engineered plinth, add a state of the art arm, state of the art cartridge, and state of the art phono stage you have an overall design superior to all but the very top of the heap modern designs.

not every 'vintage' tt is a good candidate for all this attention. you need to research which one to go with.

There's a lot of BS sorounding the improvements to turntables over the last thirty years. It is, after all, a wheel, and we've had that down for 3000 years or so. Advances in bearings and damping are real, but for most applications a table that was great thirty years ago is still going to be great. Witness the popularity of vintage Thorens TD-124s and the like. Having said that, I think the guy with the $3000 SP10 is crazy. Some people think that because it would cost XX if it were new today that thats how much they should charge for it even though its really old. Personally I use a twenty-year old Sota and it is competative with most of today's tables. Do a lot of research before you jump in with big dollars.

My opinion:

Part familiarity/comfort level with older, proven designs and part value in that turntables are a niche item these days compared to then and prices are accordingly high for good build quality.

By the way, being a physical device that derives much of its performance from build quality, turntables ( and speakers as well for similar reasons) are two parts of the system that benefit the most from solid construction and build quality that tends to be expensive these days.

Yes, emotion and nostalgia, but also convenience. In addition to having a VPI Aries, with all the add on's, I have a number of Sony's and Denon's. The two units I use most are the Sony PS-X800 (Linear Arm) and the Denon DP-47F, mainly because they are fully automatic with a repeat feature. The Sony has a Grace Ruby Red, the Denon a 160. Sound wise, in my opinion, these vintage are almost the equal of the VPI, which has a Clearaudio $2K cartridge. My systems are all tubes. Old/Classic TT's that are fully operational and functional are hard to come by and even then, unless you can do a pick up, they are a crap shoot as the carriers punish the units. Often it takes 4 units to get 1. I suggest you never buy unless the seller has all the original packing materials and boxes.

Clssic superior to modern? Not really, at least sound wise. Modern is a lot of fuss, with no one making a fully auto/repeat table. To get friends and family interested in vinyl I always suggest old/classic with fully automatic features. If they get hooked on the 'vinyl' sound, I then tell them to get something modern and see if it is superior to old on a sound basis. I've given a couple of my kid's Denon 47's and they were quite satisfied, especially since the whole family could operate it without damage to the stylus. You just put the lp on and push the button. No one has 'moved' on to 'superior', at least not yet. Since they can compare a 'move up' on my system, they don't 'hear' superior.