Why do turntables sound different?

@roberjerman ~ I agree with you, vibrations is where it's at.  Let's also add speed stability in rotating the platter.

Bearings...interesting.  I'm actually considering a bearing upgrade on my SL-1210.  I have a choice of two bearing designs:

* optical grade Sapphire-Ceramic bearing from The Funk Firm

* The Timestep bearing has the spindle as a solid single piece of polished 303 Stainless Steel with a much larger base diameter and the bearing is polished PB102 Phosphor Bronze. A silicon nitride ball and PTFE thrust pad are fitted. The whole assembly is in a captive oil bath so that you can use more suitable thin oil, or any oil of your choice.

Any recommendations?

Thank you for your thoughts.  I will go that direction then.

In terms of vibration control, if you look at my turntable I have the following setup:

* The Cartridge Man Isolator (on top of the cartridge)
+ Koetsu RSP
* KAB USA tonearm dampener (silicone based arm dampener)
* HRS Analog Disk (record weight)
= record=
* Boston Audio Mat (graphite record mat)
* Symposium Super Couplers (feet for my turntable)
* Symposium Ultra platform
* Symposium Rollerblock Jr (isolator for the platform)

Thank you for sharing those links perezzi28.

I found the KAB upgrade kits to be very educational in terms of how each upgrade impacts sound quality of the Technics.  That is why I chose a Technics SL-1210M5G as my second turntable.  I wanted to understand what affects sound quality for a turntable.

@anvil_turntables I have ordered a new bearing for my Technics, I took your suggestion and went for the sapphire-ceramic bearing.  This will be my last upgrade.  The next upgrade will be a new turntable of some kind.