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Up to £5000-ish Turntable discussion (not argument)

Accuphaseman said:
Pro ject Signature 10.

Don’t get sniffy about this being a Pro ject. This is a serious turntable.
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I bought an Pro-ject X-tension 10 to prevent me from feeling the need to fiddle, high mass, mag lev platter, mag lev levelling feet, looks great, lid !! fitted Ortofon Cadenza Black sounded pretty good.

Ex Demo £ 2.5 K.

Then one of these turned up.

So I ended up fiddling....

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12" The Wand unipivot, which transformed it. The laser sintered Titanium headshell mount is a thing.

Buying these ex-demo saved me enough to purchase a 4 box Paradise Phono stage, the phono stage being as important as the TT/cartridge choice.

In my view, those idiosyncrasies are more than offset by the Wand's extraordinarily good sound—and by its exceptional value for the dollar. In my system, the 12" Wand Plus delivered Class A sound, and now joins the similarly accomplished Schick Tonearm as one of the two least-expensive paths to that level of performance.
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https://www.stereophile.com/content/listening-197-simon-brown-wand-tonearm-page-2
 
Good idea, listed. As is STST. That’s 9. When it’s 10 I’ll go from there - just not feasible to try and audition more than 10. Garrard, Thorens, Amazon, VPI, Oracle, Verdier and Clearaudio fighting for last spot. Oh and second hand Palmer, and... Turntable choice today is bountiful and bewildering. The problem is I have liked DD, belt drive, suspended, high mass; can’t really narrow it down by type.
 
Hi Alex, I bought my Dais based on previously owning a Hyperspace years ago, the Hyperspace/Hadcock bettered both a Voyd Ref/ Helius Cyalene and a Michell Gyro SE/SME IV, although I thoroughly enjoyed owning and listening to music on all these combos, I preferred the NA.
 
The acrylic topplate of the DPS is sitting on a corc-layer just by gravity/ it's own weigth.
The bearing is fixed in the acrylic topplate and has a relatively strong resistance on purpose.
The motor has very strong torque and is firmly fixed to the lowest aluminium baseplate.
Activate your physics knowledge and you'll understand what kind of event the saphire bearing of a unipivot arm is treated to every time you switch the ON button..

The bearing is great and the power-supply is outstanding, but I wouldn't put a unipivot in particularly this environment again.
With a cardanic I don't see any whatsoever issue, I've heard a small Rega arm do forbidden things on such deck.
 
Alex I have owned a Platine Verdier for over 10 years. If you can get over the agricultural looks, you will find that it is a stunning turntable. It can take 2 tonearms, which I use to listen with carts/arms with different presentations for different records. This replaced my long-standing Thorens TD124/II and bettered it in every way. It was also better than my Garrard 401 and my Logic DM101.
 
Alex S said:
Good idea, listed. As is STST. That’s 9. When it’s 10 I’ll go from there - just not feasible to try and audition more than 10. Garrard, Thorens, Amazon, VPI, Oracle, Verdier and Clearaudio fighting for last spot. Oh and second hand Palmer, and... Turntable choice today is bountiful and bewildering. The problem is I have liked DD, belt drive, suspended, high mass; can’t really narrow it down by type.
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Then I'll put in a bid for VPI for that tenth slot. Specifically, the Prime Signature. A tad over budget at £6k, but you may get ex-dem or a bit of haggling, perhaps? I'm delighted with mine. It's one that doesn't stand out in any particular way, which is precisely why I like it. There's very little 'character' or foibles, it just makes music. Scale and authority with large classical, rhythm, groove and the 'dance factor' with jazz, beauty with female vocal, it's pretty agnostic as to genre. The 10" 3D printed tonearm is, I suspect, a large part of its appeal. I heard the lesser VPI Prime Scout, which has the vanilla 9" alloy tonearm; it's still an excellent TT, but the Sig is in a different league.

I've not heard many on your list, the range I'm most familiar with aside from VPI is Avid, and while I haven't done the comparison, I'd take the VPI over the Sequel, and until then the Sequel was where I thought I'd end up, TT-wise. I find the Sequel way ahead of either of the Michell TTs, more of the dance factor I want, just better music-making, so by extrapolation, that puts the VPI well ahead of either an Orbe, or Gyro (but, as I say, I haven't done the comparison).

Main downside from the OP's perspective is probably that it does have a bigger footprint than many decks, certainly takes up a lot more real estate than a Gyro.
 
Get a Garrard 401 and either buy, build or have built a plinth, if it doesn’t come with one. This will come in under £1k. Use any arm you choose. This will outperform most things on your list and you can make it anything you want with the plinth that you choose. Then spend the difference on a decent used car, a holiday, or a pile of records.
 
FWIW I’d either go for a tried and tested ‘classic’ with widely available support/spares be they OEM or third party, e.g. Garrard, Linn, Thorens, Technics, Lenco etc, or very long-standing and well established new e.g. Rega, Michell, NAS, Kuzma etc. I’d avoid any ‘flavours of the month’ as getting spares a decade or so down the road might be a right PITA. Beyond that I’d just say there are a load of great options both new and second hand.
 
Alex S said:
I like listening to music via records compared to other means, just. I like all kinds of music, and since this is a source I don't really see the rest of the gear being that relevant. MM or MC, I'm not bothered at this stage. I have a shortlist of things to consider. It would be helpful to know what arms are recommended for those decks that have a choice. I've decided that SME level is out of budget but would semi happily buy used.

New Regas
Michell Gyro or Orbe
Notts Analogue Dais
New Technics
Well Tempered

I've done LP12 so I won't go there again - nothing against it.

My chances of doing any meaningful dem are about zero so I would really appreciate people's thoughts. I don't really want to know that the LP12 is shite, the Orbe boring, the Well Tempereds golftastic, but would really appreciate the thoughts of any owners of the above, why they chose them and what they might have compared them to. It may also be that my modded SL1200 is good enough but either way that's not part of this discussion. Many thanks.
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I have a Pink Triangle Anniversary / Funk FXR in my second system. It has comfortably seen off a fully loaded Rock and Rega RP10. (Must get round to comparing it properly with my Klimax-bar-the-cartridge LP12.) There are a couple around for sale at the moment and a couple of active servicing /spares suppliers in addition to Funk itself.

Cheers

Iain.
 
Footprint is a definite issue; really has to go on top of a standard Hutter shelf, even better on top of my slightly smaller slate slab. The only available wall is plasterboard.
 
I would ask a couple of PFMers around, compare idler, belt and DD ideally with the same cartridge, that would be interesting.
Keith
 
Pretty much any turntable at the £5k mark should sound excellent.
I would suggest a Gyro, with the Michell arm, a £1k or so MC cart & a nice Phono stage. That will probably come at about £4k, depending on which gyro you go for, lid or no lid etc. Sounds blooming lovely.
Yes the Orbe is better, but you'd probably not get the arm, decent cart & phono stage in under the £5k target, if buying new.
I've heard the new Rega Planar8 & RP10. They are also very nice.
Not properly heard the upper end of the ProJect range, but despite the snob element against them, in the brief time I have heard them, I've been very intrigued.
Avid? Always loved the look of em, so I'd be adding them to your list.
 
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