Oracle Delphi
Garrard 301 (never played it)
Rek-O-Kut L-34 (never played it)
How many turntables have you owned?
My analog journey started in the 70's- I'm on my 6th turntable, which I have owned since 1998. I think it's my final turntable!
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- 66 posts total
My first was a portable wind-up 78 player, with steel needles, or dried hawthorn needles for a softer sound. Given to me by a grandmother, probably to the disgust of my parents who had to listen! In those days we had a massively heavy teak Garrard radiogram. My mother had me chop it into firewood and I knew no better than to comply. It was chopped up as my brother had bought a Philips mono autochanger with a ceramic pickup. Next table was my wife-to-be's Sony, replaced with a Garrard SP25 MkIV. Left that behind in the UK, and bought a piece of Radio Shack crap on arrival in Canada. Then got seduced by CDs and didn't come back until I got a RP3/Shure V15 about 2006. Stepped up to an SME 10/Series V in 2011, and acquired a second SME 10 this year. No intention whatsoever of buying any more tables! |
dogberry,
Yes! I forgot about the steel needle on my first TT. My father talked about cactus needles being used at one time, I had no experience with that. Indeed, there was to be a long succession of TT's in my future, but that wasn't so uncommon in the 60's now was it? |
Wow. So many here are into Japanese turntables. As a generality electrical engineering: great. Mechanical engineering: not so. Problem is nearly all the SQ functionality of a TT is on the mechanical side. Many people believe that if the platter rotates at exactly 33.33333rpm that's job done. Not so. The biggest engineering objective is to ensure the stylus is only free to move by tracking the groove. So no slop allowed all the way from the main bearing, through the arm bearing, cartridge cantilever right to the stylus. That requires superlative engineering of TT, arm and cart. Most Japanese TTs and ,where appicable their associated arms, do not possess this. |
- 66 posts total