Really good turntables?

[macaroonie]

Now Tom that is a nice vintage piece !! Put a flat mat on there and a general service and you have a true keeper. I've had a few of those through my hands in the past and they are BUILT to last..

[LowPhreak]

Other recommendations are well-noted, but I'd recommend any of the VPI HW-19 iterations (Mark I, II, III, or IV). Great isolation (with certain mods), very good speed stability, very low groove noise, ability to mount almost any tonearm, and excellent sound for anywhere near their price ranges. No longer in production but I'm sure they can be found on the used market, and well worth the search.

I had an HW-19 Mk III that I foolishly sold some years ago, with a Well Tempered Classic arm. I found the isolation to be even better by replacing the stock springs under the plinth with some large Sorbothane pucks, and the plinth was of course much less bouncy. I could play a pair of Nautilus 803's and REL Stentor III sub at pretty much full volume, AND had a large drum kit in the room for practice, all without disturbing the turntable/tonearm. That's some isolation!

[duaneage]

I've had a Denon DP-37F for over 20 years and I am happy with it; The dynamic servo tracer tonearm uses electro magnets instead of gravity to set the tonearm force. It adjusts the tracking force on less than perfectly flat records so well you can't really hear any flutter.

I have a Shure V15 type V xmr cartridge which is pretty accurate and tracks excellent.

Some might scuff at this setup but for the vast majority of vinyl storebought records I think it's good enough.

[Ducatista47]

Both makes you mention are essentially no more than planks of wood with the motor components and arm bolted on. They offer little if any isolation from the environment until ( music Hall ) the model 5.1 which decouples the motor on one board from the playing chassis.
Granted the Rega Arm has become something of an industry standard , IMHO it is a pity that Rega did not apply the same ingenuity and work some magic on the player.

As I mentioned and as you can see from the pic , the top plate of the plinth is isolated from the bottom by sorbothane rubber bushes however the lid seems to be mounted to the top plate and since the lid is a very distinct resonator it will transmit albeit small resonances directly to the arm.
The Rega suffers from this dreadfully.

Your advice is learned and sound, but I have to say I have never been plagued by the problem. Perhaps it is where I live, the structure and the location.

But I am beginning to think that it is the acoustic watts I am (not) projecting into the environment. How freaking loud does the average forum member play his/her rig?

I do love my big JBL speakers, all of them. I prize them for their good dynamics, low distortion, versatility and lack of weak low bass reproduction found nearly everywhere else. Having been raised in the 1950's, I still consider small speakers a poor compromise. More a statement of current fashion than sound engineering. But the conclusion becomes inescapable that JBL's ability to handle big power and play very loudly while remaining relatively low in distortion accounts for most of the love they find on the forums. The endless discussion of big power instead of smaller, cleaner power. The almost universal love of at least occasional blasts at high spl and the love of chest thumping bass. Even the reasonably inclined Widget confesses enjoying forrays way past 100dB periodically. At which point, with his rig, turntable isolation would loom large.

There is not one single thing wrong with this approach, but it holds no attraction for me as it requires much larger, less transparent and far more costly systems after the source components. And all for the small percentage of the time big spl is produced. (You can take my word for it that such systems do not do the clean low power thing nearly as well as systems designed to do so. They are not as high fidelity, but I understand your skepticism as few have heard such systems, the expensive high end customers included. They seldom get their money's worth.) Every time I have been in the room during such high spl episodes, it did not make the music sound any better. The enhancements the owner of the rig was experiencing were not musical, but cultural and physical.

Since my personal enjoyment of music is primarily spiritual, I guess I don't have anything useful to contribute to discussions like these and should keep my mouth shut. I'll try to limit myself to topics that do not draw out my ignorance of systems designed primarily for high spl reproduction. Forgive me for thinking that turntable shopping was something I could help with. I imagine many of you are really tired of me posting about low power electronics, spiritual listening, headphones and the like. Wrong website, and you have my apologies.

Clark

[midlife]

I have gotten a Rega 3. It has "bean bag" iso feet. It has a polymar platter, Cardas tone arm wiring and I am installing an Ortofon 2M Blue. I look forward to hearing some lps on this deck, hope it performs well. And about the earlier mentioned occasional high volume pass, I am sometimes caught red faced and red handed.

[30ips]

The now long in the tooth Technics SL1200 had a multi-million dollar engineering and development budget that only a major international corporation (Matsushita) could afford. The results speak for themselves. Have KAB in NJ tweak up a new black one for you. Do a blind bake-off with anything except a real high end table. Listen objectively - you will be surprised. A great value.

[raffy1218]

i would treat a god rig like an investment once your committed to analog, go for it, it like the pace and rhythm of idler, i have 3, a 401, 301 garrard then my 930st emt. Nice upbate lively sound with no "dead spots", built like tanks they only appreciate in value every year just like certain jbls here. Once I switched to idler it was all about the music and what i was missing.

[raffy1218]

apologies, last line should read, and NOT what i was missing

[midlife]

The now long in the tooth Technics SL1200 had a multi-million dollar engineering and development budget that only a major international corporation (Matsushita) could afford. The results speak for themselves. Have KAB in NJ tweak up a new black one for you. Do a blind bake-off with anything except a real high end table. Listen objectively - you will be surprised. A great value.

I had a Technics SL1100 (forerunner of the 1200) and I agree, well made, attractive, and excellent performance.

[jblsound]

I'm still using my '79 Yamaha direct drive TT, with a Shure cartridge.
Although I'd like to try out the new Marantz 15S1, made by Clearaudio. The price is $1599, I think, but that includes an $800 clearaudio cartridge.