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What is the fascination?

I have to ask what is the fascination with these older turntables?  I recently listened to an older SP 10 MKII with a Jelco and Older SME arm with Koetsu and Stanton cartridges.  The sound was very good I will admit but I cannot say it was better than the 1200G or even a 1200GR for that matter.  Heck even the Rega RP 8 is really an amazing sounding turntable for the money and they are brand new.   These tables are coming up on 40 plus years old.  One forum contributor said a turntable should not have any sound at all.  I agree and the newer tables get closer to that "no sound" than many of these colored (smooth,  warm) sounding turntables   I recently purchased a Pickering ESV 3000 MM cartridge that arrived in the mail yesterday and I had to ask myself, "what am I doing?"  So with that being said, why the fascination?  If one want to change the sound of the table, start with the cartridge, they all do sound different.  Nowadays the tables and arms are so good and engineered based on the earlier designs and bettered.  Also, when you buy say an older used arm, how do you know its been cared for?  Arms bearings can be screwed up pretty bad when one tries to tighten cartridges with the headshell attached to the tonearm or the tonearm mounted on the table and many people do not even know they are destroying their arms bearings so I mean you really have to know who you are getting the arm from and check the bearings etc.  There is a lot of risk with turntables, much more than with any components because of so many moving parts that do get old and break.  Why the fascination? 
tzh21y

Showing 3 responses by sleepwalker65

sleepwalker65's avatar
sleepwalker65
832 posts
 
As one who has restored a 39 year old Technics SL-1700mk2 and working on a second one for mono playback, I do it for a few reasons: 

1: It’s fun for me to take something that’s got historical significance and rehabilitate it so (hopefully) I and future generations will enjoy it as an heirloom item. 

2. I enjoy the pursuit of maximizing the potential of things that are already intrinsically good. 

3. I don’t care for the look/feel and price of modern turntables. Most of the new ones I would consider are strictly manual, and sometimes I’m too lazy to get up at the end of then record side to pick the needle up from the lead-out groove. 
sleepwalker65's avatar
sleepwalker65
832 posts
 
@glupson I know what you mean about the SL-Q2. It is a great turntable, I rehabilitated one a while ago, and have another that I’m going to restore once I’ve got my second SL-1700mk2 all restored.  I wish I had bought either one of those back when I was young, but I got lured in by the linear tracking design and bought a SL-DL5 brand new, that I still have. It’s great fun getting back into vinyl. 
sleepwalker65's avatar
sleepwalker65
832 posts
 
@ferrari275 good point. The engineering that went into turntables of the pre-CNC age was good ole fashioned blood, sweat and tears. No good design came easily back 40 and 50 years ago. There is also something to be said for work ethic and the non-globalized labor market of those times. I’ve restored some 35 to 40 year old turntables, and aside from the scarcity of parts, they’ve been a joy to work on and listen to, simply because of the inherent quality they possess. You know a turntable is good when it’s that old and can survive abuse of a deranged rapper and then be restored without major reconstructive surgery. 
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