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New Turntable Purchase in the last 10 years...

If you purchased a new turntable in the last 10 years what was its retail price:

  • <£500

    Votes: 5 4.4%
  • <£1000

    Votes: 12 10.5%
  • <£3000

    Votes: 45 39.5%
  • <£5000

    Votes: 26 22.8%
  • <£10000

    Votes: 13 11.4%
  • <£20000

    Votes: 8 7.0%
  • <£30000

    Votes: 1 0.9%
  • above £30000

    Votes: 4 3.5%

  • Total voters
    114
  • Poll closed .
I have felt no need to purchase a new turntable in the last 40 years. I did go through quite a few very good turntables in the 15 years previous though. I'm still more than happy with my L-07D purchased new in 1981 for £1,100 and the equivalent of about £4.5K today taking normal inflation into account. High end turntables seem to have inflated much more though. I did add an SME V as an extra arm about 10 years ago and that cost about double the price of the turntable.
 
Mmm. We have a retailer with first hand experience & a number of industry contacts vs Internet forum opinion. The assumption that there are more people like us is probably a falsehood.

Linn can continue to produce a TT as they have a legacy & a broad range of clients to sell to; I really don’t think this is the case with many others bar Rega. The investment in the tooling was done years ago when demand was higher; I doubt any of them could sustain such a model from scratch now.

Linn’s flagship source is now a streamer.
 
I'm still more than happy with my L-07D purchased new in 1981 for £1,100 and the equivalent of about £4.5K today taking normal inflation into account. High end turntables seem to have inflated much more though.

I hate to think what an L-07D would cost today. A stunning thing, and I suspect it would be in the SME 30 to TechDas pricing now (as would EMTs etc).
 
Very few if any young folk will be playing in this sector. I’d put money on the core customer base for £15k+ record players being the 60+ who have paid off the mortgage, have a great pension and don’t fancy dying with a few £100k left in the bank. Many of them saw little if any impact from austerity, in fact well invested savings seem to be doing very well at present.

The audio market has always been good ears and little money in younger years vs. the reverse as one gets older. The extremes certainly seem far greater now which I suspect is just a reflection of an increasingly unequal and divided society. The rich are getting richer, the poor poorer.

Agreed, but then given the previously outlined circumstances, I expect that to be a shrinking demographic rather than one maintained (or grown) by a constant influx of new pensioners.
 
It's been a LONG time since I was through the Linn factory and training - 1996, in fact. Do they still use the Okuma CNC machines for their machining? I remember seeing how much a single Okuma cost and thinking "wow."
 
I hate to think what an L-07D would cost today. A stunning thing, and I suspect it would be in the SME 30 to TechDas pricing now (as would EMTs etc).
When Richard of Vantage Audio who was a real expert with L-07D's, but unfortunately closed his business, serviced mine over 10 years ago he estimated to build one then they would need to retail at £20K plus. Apparently Kenwood / Trio lost money on everyone they sold. It was more of a promotional / vanity product rather than a direct income producing product.
 
Agreed, but then given the previously outlined circumstances, I expect that to be a shrinking demographic rather than one maintained (or grown) by a constant influx of new pensioners.

I’m hoping the current vinyl revival thing, which is certainly across all ages, gets new folk on board who will be in our position when they are our age. I suspect there will be a distinct dip with the generation who were in their teens and early 20s through the dark days of the 1990s as they’ll never have connected with the medium (if anything they are a future CD revival waiting to happen).

One thing I’m not sure of is the lasting impact of club culture, e.g. it might be the case that many of today’s younger record buyers view the SL-1200 as the absolute pinnacle of vinyl replay and once there they are done for life (maybe the £2.5k 1200G). In some respects that may be the death of the boutique high-end as the current culture isn’t based on the concept of ‘upgrades’ the way prior generations were fed by magazines and dealers. That is likely a good thing and I will never criticise anyone for using an SL-1200. They are a very good turntable IMO.

PS I’d like to know how many 1200Gs Richer Sounds have sold. My money is on *lots*.

Edit: I’ve just had a look at their site and it’s gone up over £1k since I bought one, now £3.5k!
 
How any Techdas Air Force One turntables (that is the first Techdas turntable) would you believe were sold in the whole of the Americas over the first 4 year period?

The answer is 11 over 4 years for the whole of the Americas. I think that sums it up nicely, however I suspect they have sold about 4 times that in Japan and Hong Kong.
 
I see you can get it in bright pink and have a four letter word of your choice printed on the armboard…

PS It is interesting as it suggests Naim decided to undercut what I assume is their main competition by £3k. They are both complete vinyl replay solutions so broadly comparable.

Well, they don't have a naughty word filter for the preview pic, but I have to assume they do for real orders. OMG, what if someone wanted "Naim" printed on their armboard? Scandalous!
 
PS I’d like to know how many 1200Gs Richer Sounds have sold. My money is on *lots*.

Edit: I’ve just had a look at their site and it’s gone up over £1k since I bought one, now £3.5k!

I think that they originally retailed for £3k, but Richer and others frequently discounted them to £2.5k. My money would be on lots too, even at £3.5k!

It would be interesting to compare one of these Technics TTs with a mega bucks TT and ask yourself whether the extra money really did bring much more in terms of musical enjoyment.
 
I think that one of the issues in the UK is that Linn have sold an awful lot of LP12s here and that the LP12 is easy to upgrade and modify. As a result, many only ever buy one LP12, but they continuously modify and upgrade it into a vastly different beast to their original purchase. I still have the LP12 I bought 1989, but there isn't much of that original TT left; most of the original parts have long been replaced. Its a bit like Trigger's broom!
 
I checked the under 3k choice, as the Rega P6/Ania I bought was $1475, as a dealer demo.

A terrific sounding player!
 
In the last ten years I've gone from a Technics >something< to a Project Debut, to Rega P3, to my current P10. That has coincided with an increase in salary over the years, as well as having accumulated more vinyl I felt 'justified' to invest more in something to play it on!

I clicked the <£5000 option, but then there are additional associated costs; phono stage, etc.
 
I’m hoping the current vinyl revival thing, which is certainly across all ages, gets new folk on board who will be in our position when they are our age. I suspect there will be a distinct dip with the generation who were in their teens and early 20s through the dark days of the 1990s as they’ll never have connected with the medium (if anything they are a future CD revival waiting to happen).
That was me and my friends. What kept us going with vinyl was mostly the fact that it was at that point the medium of dance music. As it happens (on your other point) most of my friends did have SL1200s, and still have them - zero audiophile tendencies despite the fact that they still shun CDs and streaming, just no interest in kit at all.
 
I think that they originally retailed for £3k, but Richer and others frequently discounted them to £2.5k. My money would be on lots too, even at £3.5k!

It would be interesting to compare one of these Technics TTs with a mega bucks TT and ask yourself whether the extra money really did bring much more in terms of musical enjoyment.
Michael Fremer’s review of the 1200 was certainly glowing given the bonkers priced kit he mainly uses, which would suggest it more than holds its own. Certainly the development Technics put into that motor unit was impressive and no small company would have been able to offer anything like that at that kind of price. It looks a bargain to me.
 
Very few if any young folk will be playing in this sector. I’d put money on the core customer base for £15k+ record players being the 60+ who have paid off the mortgage, have a great pension and don’t fancy dying with a few £100k left in the bank. Many of them saw little if any impact from austerity, in fact well invested savings seem to be doing very well at present.

The audio market has always been good ears and little money in younger years vs. the reverse as one gets older. The extremes certainly seem far greater now which I suspect is just a reflection of an increasingly unequal and divided society. The rich are getting richer, the poor poorer.

I think you are right about the likely age group investing in Uber turntables. It may surprise GT but I know of two people who in the latter part of last year took delivery of SAT turntables. I hasten to add I wasn’t one of the two!
 
Michael Fremer’s review of the 1200 was certainly glowing given the bonkers priced kit he mainly uses, which would suggest it more than holds its own. Certainly the development Technics put into that motor unit was impressive and no small company would have been able to offer anything like that at that kind of price. It looks a bargain to me.

There's certainly a lot of truth in that statement, companies such as Technics being part of Panasonic have a distinct advantage in some areas over small companies.
Not that i'm suggesting that makes them better in any way! I daren't do that on here :D
 
No disrespect to GT but if wanted another turntable I would go for a well established brand so if it broke it would have spares and could be fixed.

My main turntables have been an LP12 with cheaper Systemdek, Pioneer and Lenco in between.

I am currently running a Thorens TD550 which with all the bits isn't far off the Naim Solstice. I wouldn't change it because I like it and the cost to change to a slightly different but unlikely better deck would be high.

I bet Harrods and some of the top end dealers shift a reasonable amount. The buyers don't frequent sites like this.
 
I had an SME 20/3. Wasn't using it so sold it and bought RP8. Wasn't using that either so sold that after 4 years. 700 LP's and no TT.
I don't miss the clicks and pops, the audio-nervosa and the upgrades and tweaks that come with optimising a vinyl front end.
While clicks and pops can be a problem, in my experience they are often due to the turntable/arm/cartridge rather than dirty or damaged LPs. I've been playing lots of old LPs on my new Gyrodec over the past few days, some of which I had regarded as pretty much unplayable on my two previous turntables but which are virtually silent on the Gyrodec, which I wasn't expecting.
 


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