Making a £13000 turntable

[Phorize]

£13k and mostly common as mud MDF used. I keep my new Technics SL-1210GR that I got a slight lower price cos it was a demo model in the showroom. £13k for MDF when MDF is commonly £8 pounds for 4x8.

10k was for the arm and the cartridge, I’d imagine the motor unit was around 2k. I know the plinth maker and he’s only charging for his time and materials. Like you I don’t think this customer chose a route with a good cost to performance ratio

 

[scott wurcer]

You haven't been to Home Depot in awhile.
That's easily $200 in plywood, alone.

The maker is a solo shop, geared toward restorations and repair of ancient British homes. There's no backstory, but I suppose one of his clients asked for the first turntable base.

I watched it for amusement, he had a lot of well used templates and it looked like several other plinths were under construction.

 

[Phorize]

I watched it for amusement, he had a lot of well used templates and it looked like several other plinths were under construction.

I know Russ, he’s a general carpenter working on his own, he’s become a go to person for wood turntable plinths in the U.K.

 

[Andysu]

10k was for the arm and the cartridge, I’d imagine the motor unit was around 2k. I know the plinth maker and he’s only charging for his time and materials. Like you I don’t think this customer chose a route with a good cost to performance ratio

So you like, this thread or the other one about measurement of vinyl or toe arms costing the price of decent secondhand car.
Again I keep my Technics. I find this audiophile stuff amusing. Please don't tell me the phone leads don't cost £5k. The ones for my SL-1210GR look like standard ones that came with the Technics, to be around £5.00 for 24"?

 

[Bamyasi]

£13k and mostly common as mud MDF used. I keep my new Technics SL-1210GR that I got a slight lower price cos it was a demo model in the showroom. £13k for MDF when MDF is commonly £8 pounds for 4x8.

Title of the video is rather misleading, as it has been already noticed by other posters. It is about £11K in hardware costs, which is provided by the customer (original Garrard mechanism + some expensive SME tonearm clone + equally expensive cartridge) plus maybe some £1,500 for the plinth & work. Still expensive but not THAT expensive if you have this kind of money to spend on the whole thing.

 

[Helicopter]

Title of the video is rather misleading, as it has been already noticed by other posters. It is about £11K in hardware costs, which is provided by the customer (original Garrard mechanism + some expensive SME tonearm clone + equally expensive cartridge) plus maybe some £1,500 for the plinth & work. Still expensive but not THAT expensive if you have this kind of money to spend on the whole thing.

I mean, he wants people to click on it.

 

[Phorize]

I mean, he wants people to click on it.

And they do!

 

[Phorize]

Title of the video is rather misleading, as it has been already noticed by other posters. It is about £11K in hardware costs, which is provided by the customer (original Garrard mechanism + some expensive SME tonearm clone + equally expensive cartridge) plus maybe some £1,500 for the plinth & work. Still expensive but not THAT expensive if you have this kind of money to spend on the whole thing.

I like idler drive turntables and have a 301 with an sme arm. You can buy a far ‘better’ turntable for the money I paid for my arm. A new technics for example. I just enjoy playing with it, and it was worth it to me. My whole tt cost marginally more than the cartridge shown in the video. Although expensive in audio terms, there are plenty of people blowing inordinately larger amounts of cash on things we’d find equally frivolous, I know someone who breeds racehorses.. He’s retired, and loses money hand over fist doing it, as does everyone else buying in. It costs up to £20000 to get a single ‘jump’ with one of his top stallions-that’s £20k to play roulette with the chances of a mare producing a winning thoroughbred. The people doing it live for it though. At least in motor racing you can objectively measure how the car will perform before the race.

 

[Phorize]

I should add that whilst my sme m2 was objectively overpriced for what went into it, that Ikeda arm is next level poor value for money. Probably a 500% mark up on that one, even if only made in small numbers.

 

[Andysu]

Title of the video is rather misleading, as it has been already noticed by other posters. It is about £11K in hardware costs, which is provided by the customer (original Garrard mechanism + some expensive SME tonearm clone + equally expensive cartridge) plus maybe some £1,500 for the plinth & work. Still expensive but not THAT expensive if you have this kind of money to spend on the whole thing.

I think the Technics SL-1210GR is about a realistic price even thou it really maybe less than £600 cos all this is so common as Mud today to build as it was so cheap decades before these snob rich audiojunkphiles cos they are snobs and snobs wouldn't be seen dead buying a fisher price turntable for £50.00,. would they now.
I would never have a snob toff audiophile in my home no, way absolutely not.

 

[Phorize]

I think the Technics SL-1210GR is about a realistic price even thou it really maybe less than £600 cos all this is so common as Mud today to build as it was so cheap decades before these snob rich audiojunkphiles cos they are snobs and snobs wouldn't be seen dead buying a fisher price turntable for £50.00,. would they now.
I would never have a snob toff audiophile in my home no, way absolutely not.

Well that’s clearly your choice. I’m just not sure that what was seen in that video was audio snobbery. From what I can tell it was just someone with fairly ordinary means (inferred by the route take to acquire this deck) spending considerably more money than is needed to have a turntable that they (almost certainly he) enjoys looking at as much as listening to. I guess if we all had our priorities right in purely rational terms we’d all just use edifier monitors with a cheap dac and pay for a few hundred thousand mosquito nets for people in developing countries with the difference.

 

[Andysu]

Well that’s clearly your choice. I’m just not sure that what was seen in that video was audio snobbery. From what I can tell it was just someone with fairly ordinary means (inferred by the route take to acquire this deck) spending considerably more money than is needed to have a turntable that they (almost certainly he) enjoys looking at as much as listening to. I guess if we all had our priorities right in purely rational terms we’d all just use edifier monitors with a cheap dac and pay for a few hundred thousand mosquito nets for people in developing countries with the difference.

Money is odd strange thing now that simply Divides us all. I let you think on that for a week or more, don't answer it now, good heavens above not now I know the answer but I have to obey it? It sickens me to the stomach.

 

[Phorize]

Money is odd strange thing now that simply Divides us all. I let you think on that for a week or more, don't answer it now, good heavens above not now I know the answer but I have to obey it? It sickens me to the stomach.

It’s a dichotomy that’s for sure. I’m somewhere between Siddhartha Gautama and John Rawls on this one. And there I leave it

 

[sq225917]

Russ is an excellent carpenter with a high level of cabinet making skill and years of experience, you're paying for his skill and expertise in the quality of finish as well as the materials and his huge collection of Festool kit.

@ dsjr, the garrard motor is a shaded pole induction motor with skewed stator bar construction, the number of poles is pretty meaningless as regards smooth running and low cogging, it'll outperform any synchronous ac 12 pole motor from the usual suspects, linn, rega et Al.