Vintage rebuilds like Lenco, Gerrard

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I had some questions for people here who prefer turntables that are vintage. I happen to know only Prem and Arj who are deep into vintage rebuilds. Few points listed below. Would love your thoughts about them. I would really appreciate thoughts from people who have really gone through the journey themselves.



  1. Are they technologically superior ?
  2. Do they offer something that the newer decks do not do ?
  3. Let’s say your music spans a wide genre and 80 percent of that music is mostly produced in the west. Rock, Jazz, Western classical, Folk etc. Is vintage rebuild a good choice
  4. What did you explore and why did you choose to go the vintage route ?
  5. What do you lose if you buy popular choices like vpi prime scout / classic, Linn sontek, Rega P6 ?
 
You might get some pointers from this thread:

 
I have experience with Linn and Garrard 301. Linn is difficult, expensive and if you are very rich and have time to endlessly fiddle it is the perfect fit for you. It can only take 9" arms. Every six months it needs to be rebalanced, which is a truly messy process, believe me. If you are impatient (like I was), there is a serious risk of accidents, as the TT has to be propped up at a height and you have to work like a car mechanic does under a car. At the end of all that you would end up neglecting the rest of your system, as so much time would go into continually tuning the system. I guess it is a characteristic of all sprung suspension TTs.

Garrard 301 is rock like - once you get it right it wont change any setting on its own. That gives you enormous freedom to experiment, as each experiment is an increment, and you don't have to keep redoing balancing.

Between Garrard and a modern system, I would be inclined to think that Garrard is made with extremely high quality durable parts, and there are now good quality aftermarket parts, like the idler wheel from Simon Lucetti etc. which almost make it modern, without breaking the bank. In a modern TT, an equivalent quality construction would cost a lot, given how small TT volumes are these days. But with modern manufacturing methods improving including economics at small volumes, in a few years, there should be more variety emerging with quality to rival the vintage makes.

The arm and cart are independent of all this - I guess your Q was on the TT only.
 
I have experience with Linn and Garrard 301. Linn is difficult, expensive and if you are very rich and have time to endlessly fiddle it is the perfect fit for you. It can only take 9" arms. Every six months it needs to be rebalanced, which is a truly messy process, believe me. If you are impatient (like I was), there is a serious risk of accidents, as the TT has to be propped up at a height and you have to work like a car mechanic does under a car. At the end of all that you would end up neglecting the rest of your system, as so much time would go into continually tuning the system. I guess it is a characteristic of all sprung suspension TTs.

Garrard 301 is rock like - once you get it right it wont change any setting on its own. That gives you enormous freedom to experiment, as each experiment is an increment, and you don't have to keep redoing balancing.

Between Garrard and a modern system, I would be inclined to think that Garrard is made with extremely high quality durable parts, and there are now good quality aftermarket parts, like the idler wheel from Simon Lucetti etc. which almost make it modern, without breaking the bank. In a modern TT, an equivalent quality construction would cost a lot, given how small TT volumes are these days. But with modern manufacturing methods improving including economics at small volumes, in a few years, there should be more variety emerging with quality to rival the vintage makes.

The arm and cart are independent of all this - I guess your Q was on the TT only.

@ Gerry,

Lovely. This is the kind of feedback I am looking for. Thanks a bunch. Yes, I am looking at feedback for TT only but I guess all these are connected and choices may have implications down the road. Any wisdom is appreciated :)
 
The vintage builds seem to be meatier and chunkier in a lot of cases. Aesthetically, I think the vintage tables look great. At a higher price point, you get great builds in the newer TTs too but at the lower price point, the vintage tables look better and perform equally well in my limited experience.
e.g. a NAD 556 or Rega P1 dont look and feel (in terms of build quality and materials used) as good as an older pioneer or technics. I understand your question was more particularly directed at Garrards and Lencos and I veered off a bit.
 
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