Vintage Turntable: AR Es-1 vs Denon DP-60L

AR MHANDS DOWN. Denon is a poor table, direct drive. I remember how my AR did gymnastic stunts. You can defeat the environment, but you can never make Denon sound good.
The easy answer is a wall mounted shelf for the AR. Failing that, you can have one to four stages of isolation. I use Black Diamond Racing cones below their shelf. You might even better explore a shelf filled with compressed air. But please do not go to direct drive; they made cd's look good even in '83.

A well implemented direct drive table sounds fine. Some of the best tables ever sold utilized direct drive. The Cotter used a Denon direct drive motor as its drive unit. The Goldmund Studio (and Studiette) were direct drive units and considered great tables to this day. Denon DP5000/6000 units were excellent tables but very rare. A Technics SP 10 Mk II/III in a correct plinth with a good tonearm is a wonderful turntable.

Whether it is belt drive, direct drive, or idler wheel what is important is the execution of the design. A belt drive design is much easier for a company with limited machining and R&D capabilities to build. They just acquire the motor and electronics from others, or contract the producion, and then assemble a table of their own design.

Idler wheel turntables also have proven their worth but, again, only if executed correctly. This is why old Garrard 301 and 401 models (and Thorens 124) have been run up in price.

I own an ES,

As long as you a isolate the rig(as stated above), its an awesome table at it's used price point.

I upgrade the arm to a RB-300,arm board,Incognito wiring,Heavy weight,Aurum Beta-S,Black cube p/phono.

All said,a beautiful sound/look

Another vote for the AR. I still miss mine, even though I adore its replacement, a Gyro SE. The AR with a Linn tonearm and Clearaudio cart gave me my first glimpse of what a "good" turntable sounded like :)

As others have said, it's quite a bouncy suspension so do make provisions for proper isolation. In terms of servicing, it's a pretty simple design so not difficult to service and you can still get belts for it.

If you're thinking of getting one, and you're getting it from anything less than a reputable dealer/owner, and if you're not so handy with TT setups, do take it to a trusted tech for a once over--make sure the moving parts are clean and working smoothly, suspension is sound, bearing properly lubed, tonearm and cart set up precisely, etc.

I still own my AR ES-1, and I did own a direct drive Denon for a number of years in the '80's. I love the AR and prefer it, but I was surprised how great the Denon sounded also, it definitely held its own, at least in my system.

What I remember is that the quality of manufacture of the Denon direct drives seemed to go downhill at one point in time, like they were cutting corners by making components thinner and lighter, and unfortunately I don't remember the model number of my fine unit or any of the others. I think my Denon unit was from the days of "S" shaped arms (was there an advantage to that?), circa 1980.

Art