Thanks for the replies. So do you guys have an opinion on which turntables perform best/are designed best at each price point?
Without risking it reading
borderline Stereophile'ish?
I wouldn't worry too much about springs in arms. They are light and have low damping and whilst they will be excited by tapping the arm they are most unlikely to be whilst playing music.
Totally disagree, they will, to one degree or another, get
excited when playing music.
The problem is that the "experts" are not, in general, and there are no hard and fast simple rules.
Expert bias has become all too common online, near meaningless.
I live in a large audiophile friendly city, where hi-end turntables outsell hi-end digital in spades, where brick & mortar stores still exist and do well, because they continue to sell turntables, from cheap to ultra expensive units. Where SACD and hi-rez never really caught on, where major LP factories are now being built (and supplying many jobs) within 2 hours drive. Analog availability, in these here hills, isn't going away anytime soon. The luxury of hearing near any turntable here, is as easy as contacting the appropriate dealer, and arranging a demo.
However, that in-itself, is rendered near meaningless when attempting to offer subjective advice online, either in a positive or a negative fashion. It would be nice to have the ability to acquire rips from dealers and/or
expert worldwide, that
information is far more relative, meaningful and sharable. How meaningful it maybe to you is based on your own sensibilities; but certainly a rip provides farrrrrrr more meaningful
insight sonically than all the positive fluff and/or negative whine you'll read online.
But alas, few
experts provide rips, and all too often when asked, the same excuses follow. Hells bells; near a decade ago we shared rips over the net, even an online internet publication participated, and it helped everyone involved in terms of gained
insight regarding all our systems capabilities, expectations and preferences. Take a rip over a demo any day of the week. All dealers, especially those selling expensive 'tables, should provide samples/rips. Even Fremer provides rips. Hopefully more internet "experts" follow suit ...
The simple fact is, without any ripping capability, without the ability to test the
accuracy of your system's current setup; either with actual music and/or test records, without such data, you might as well just be gilding the lily. You're guessing, and hence, any advice offered follows suit. Despite my decades of experience, my understanding of analog as a whole has improved by leaps & bounds solely because of digital intervention. Certainly not because of most "experts" advice online, most of which can't even get the basics correct. Even the application of an old Galaxy S3, as a measuring tool, has provided me more insight, and avoids much of the
guess work held prior.
So you can write all day long about the advantages / disadvantages of resonance, removable headshells vs rigidness, about all your experiences and theories, about how other people are not really experts, scuff that soapbox, it only puts further into question your "ability" to put pen to paper relative to actually making your very own analog rig work optimally.
So this would seem to exclude any of the SME arms, as they either have springs for VTF & anti-skate, and/or removable headshells. My Jeclo would also be out for the same reason, same with Ortofon arms.
What criteria?
It should be noted that for quite some time, I've strongly considered buying a Jelco. I like 'em very much. I probably would have purchased 1 already if I had given up hope of finding certain other arms, available relatively cheap, in the used market. That said, I would not use the Jelco on my ripping/achiving 'table ... rather it would be mounted on my everyday listening "just for pleasure" TT.
I'm not always looking for
perfection either ...