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5 Vintage Turntables for Your Stereo System
Don’t buy a vintage turntable until you read this. Here’s what you need to know.
Do vintage turntables really offer a better listening experience than modern tables below $2,000? There is no question that certain vintage turntables offer superior build quality and reliability but that also comes with a higher asking price if repairs need to be done or parts need replacing.
Vintage turntables have become extremely popular during this new golden age of vinyl, but we are not entirely convinced that consumers looking for a vintage turntable really understand what that entails. “Vintage” gets used a lot as a marketing term to attract a certain type of customer — but don’t confuse that attempt to sell you something with reality.
Not every vintage turntable is worth considering. This list could have included products like the iconic Linn Sondek LP12, Michell Gyrodeck, Roksan Xerxes, Oracle Delphi, Well Tempered Lab turntable, SOTA Sapphire, or even an older Lenco or Garrard, but we wanted to keep this below $2,000. Gulp. That “quality” thing that we mentioned does require an investment.
We love the vintage turntables below because the brands still exist, parts are available, companies can restore them for you, and they sound great when properly set-up.
We wouldn’t recommend these turntables if we didn’t have extensive experience with them or own them currently.
Suspended turntables are more prone to footfalls and vibration and need to be setup on a really inert stand or even wall-mounted shelf. Hello Thorens.
Another issue with vintage turntables involves the availability of replacement tonearms if the original model needs to be replaced; SME no longer sells its tonearms to the general public which is a major blow to Thorens owners who made a habit out of ditching the stock arms for the superior SME models.
Rega, Michell, and Origin Live arms can work on Thorens tables but they require careful set-up.
Thorens TD-125
One of the most iconic belt-driven vintage turntables of the 1970s, the Thorens TD-125 is in serious demand in 2022. Restoration companies like Vinyl Nirvana can’t work on them fast enough for customers who either found one online or at a garage sale. Thorens sold more than 100,000 TD-125s in 1975 alone (according to the numbers), and that means that there are lot of tables and parts floating around.
What made the TD-125 so unique was the electronic speed control that was a major feature of the turntable. The pitch control was a very important feature that high-end buyers demanded and it makes the turntable a very stable platform for a myriad of tonearms. The TD-125 was originally sold with its own tonearm, but users began switching them out for SME tonearms for their superior performance. It’s a heavy suspended design with a 7-pound platter and they are made to last.
The TD-125 is an easy turntable to service, modify, and restore making it very popular with audiophiles who remember its excellent speed stability, and very pleasing tone. It doesn’t offer the same degree of low-end extension of some comparable modern decks, but it’s a great table with something like the Ortofon 2M Black, Denon DL-103, or Dynavector low-output moving coil cartridges.
The suspended design definitely requires some isolation, and we recommend a very heavy equipment rack or wall-mounted turntable shelf in your listening room. I’m 3 tables deep with Vinyl Nirvana over the past decade and nobody is better at customer service or setup help.
This article originally appeared at ecoustics.com and has been shared here with permission. Read the full article here: https://www.ecoustics.com/articles/best-vintage-turntables/
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