Nostalgia and THE AR Turntable.

KevinCorr

KevinCorr

Super Member
Do you ever want to re acquire an old favorite just to compare it with the new?

Or was that "AR The Turntable?" You will get that if you read the old threads.

My two old favorites "in the day" Were an AR and a Thorens. No, I have not been looking at turntables, but I saw an AR at a decent price and wonder how it would "a/b" against my Rega R3. I miss the beautiful looks, of those vintage wood tables,
especially vs my ugly green plastic Rega.

An old AR thread posts the Vinyl Nirvana.com. While it is about AR and Thorens, it has a lot of good info on vintage. Since I will not do any work on it myself, it will end up costing a lot more when you add the tech service.

Vinyl Nirvana has tables ready to go, eg one looking like mine is $1K plus cartridge and shipping. Say $1300. http://www.vinylnirvana.com/vintage...r-es-1-turntable-mission-774-arm-many-extras/

Or buy a used on cheap (say $500 for The Turntable). Not bad for a beauty, but then if I have it restored, I am getting long way toward new.

Vinyl AR Restoration Packages:
For AR ES-1, AR EB-101, and AR the Turntable only:
Tune-up and Complete Detailing *(Includes new belt and upgrade spring/stud kit. Other parts extra) $175 *Example of restored and upgraded AR ES-1

Or wait and get a brand new table. Maybe better for someone who does NOT want to do any work on it.
 
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Not much traffic. Where are all the vintage turntable guys? Maybe prefer other brands.
My questions may not have been made clear?

1- First, wondering if I should go down this road at all as a person who does not want to work on or tinker with gear.
I found "The Turntable" for $500 and thought about how much I had missed it. I don't really know what model mine was but it looks like both The Turntable and the ES1 you see pictured on Vinyl Nirvana.

2- The Turntable vs ES1 = Which is the better table? Which is a better deal?
Sure $500 used The Turntable is a good deal, but with service and repair it may end up costing as much or more than the ES1 on Vinyl Nirvana ($1200 w/cartridge). The ES1 is ready to go.

3- I wondered how the old AR sounds vs a brand new Rega RP3 or other brand close competitor?

I had been considering upgrading my Rega R3 to a new RP3, which cost $900 or less. Not good looking to me but sound good enough.
AR tables are lovely and cost about the same range as a new RP3, but I don't know how they compare. Naturally I would look for a better looking brand new table vs the Rega before I settled on one.
 
IMHO, the AR is the way to go. Older tables, especially fully rebuild will give you many years of service as would a new Rega, but the older tables just have such a nice sound signature. I have a Thorens TD160 that's just that way. My newer tables sound great, but they don't have the warmth you get from older ones. Just me opinion:)
 
I acquired a AR-XB in a package deal and eventually sent it to Marc to have it restored. It performs very well in comparison to my other two TT a Thorens TD -316 which has a split plinth and a Technics SL-1300 that I use on my other two systems.
 
guystp- Thanks for the input. Coincidentally I had a Thorens in the 70's before the AR in the 80s.
It was my 2d table but my first good table. It got a lot of use.

Dublin, good another AR fan.
 
To be truthful, I think the Thorens is a lot better than the AR, although the AR wins in the style department, assuming you're talking about the TD 150 or 160.

If it's sound quality you want, then the Thorens is the one to go for, and with an upgraded tonearm could be a Linn beater. Certainly much better than your Rega.
 
KevinCorr said:
guystp- Thanks for the input. Coincidentally I had a Thorens in the 70's before the AR in the 80s.
It was my 2d table but my first good table. It got a lot of use.

I just did a trade for an AR and expect to get it in the next week or so. Th e previous owner tells me it's an XA but the pics don't suggest that. It is a custom table so it may very well be. I've never owned an AR before but heard a lot of good stuff about them. Anyway, let us know which way you go!:music:
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If the AR is in good condition and playable, get it and enjoy the music until you decide when to have it upgraded. There's no reason to have it upgraded before you start playing vinyl. This way you can test the before and after and determine for yourself if the money spent is worth it.

I have read several posts/threads regarding a "good" turntable. If you have around $500 to spend on a turntable, you are better off buying a vintage table. The reason is there is not a new table in that price range that could compare to a vintage. To get a real good turntable, you have to spend between $1000 to $1500, basically the cost of an entry level VPI or ClearAudio. Considering you have already purchased the AR table, by the time you spent upgrading the AR, it would still be worth it, and it would blow any new table out of the water.

When buying a turntable, vintage is the only way to go. The quality and performance of a vintage table surpasses any new table today. I have also read posts saying to get a new table to sound and perform the same as the vintage table it would cost over $1000 to get the same.

Buying a vintage table is money well spent. If you decide to sell, I don't know why you would, but you could almost recoup the money spent.
 
I am not a tinkerer per se yet I have found that once a "vintage" table is cleaned up the good ones are built like tanks and should provide years of excellent, finicky free service. I have 2 Duals(1219 & 1019) and a Garrard Lab 80 MKII and they are simply superb performers that ask very little and deliver. I came from using a pretty expensive VPI set up and I like these tables a lot more. I found I had to tinker a lot more with the VPI to have it sound like I thought it should, and I was constantly listening to the table, not the music. Not good. That doesn't happen anymore. I use old Shure carts who have plenty of stylus choices available so don't have to even think about should i get yet another more expensive cart. I will never go back to "new". I'm enjoying myself too much now.

Good luck with your decision.
 
guystp said:
IMHO, the AR is the way to go. Older tables, especially fully rebuild will give you many years of service as would a new Rega, but the older tables just have such a nice sound signature. I have a Thorens TD160 that's just that way. My newer tables sound great, but they don't have the warmth you get from older ones. Just me opinion:)
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Agreed. The Thorens is also a fine unit, but I was hooked on the looks of the The Turntable/ES-1 back in the day. Plus I was eyeballing The Merril mods of the day as well. I finally found the "The turntable" I own today and am glad I did it. I was ecstatic when Merrill/Scillia began to re-produce the mods in improved materials, and scooped them up.

The basic stock table is very nice, but believe me the mods can really send it over the edge. Plus, I found a reproduction maple AR base for the ES-1/The turntable. I have so heavily modded my table that I was able to take all the leftover parts and build Another The Turntable with the addition of buying a new metal plinth for the new maple base and a new hurst motor!

Russellc
 
grottyash said:
To be truthful, I think the Thorens is a lot better than the AR, although the AR wins in the style department, assuming you're talking about the TD 150 or 160.

If it's sound quality you want, then the Thorens is the one to go for, and with an upgraded tonearm could be a Linn beater. Certainly much better than your Rega.
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With the full house of Merril/Scillia mods, both the thorens as well as the Linn are way back in the dust. I completely depressed my friend and his mega buck Linn...the Thorens was behind him a long way...YMMV. To be fair, only the wood base, the metal plinth and the motor (modified per George Merrill) is all that is left...

Russellc
 
Sorry, no. The engineering on the Linn is in a class that can't be equalled by the Thorens or the AR. Sure, it is at a price, but you get what you pay for. It's one of the reason that the Linn goes from strength to strength, whereas both Thorens and AR have long since disappeared.
 
Take a look at the spindle, the tolerances. No wonder Roy Gandy said he couldn't produce anything close to what that would cost.
 
P.S It wasn't done in 1961. Check the records - the Ariston, engineered by Linn, was the first, and that was around 1973.
 
Wow, lots of good info now. Thanks to all who joined in.

This started with an ad for a 'cheap' AR. I see that I can't really go wrong. As 4play said "...enjoy the music until you decide when to have it upgraded...".
Plus the extra nudge from sberger, guystp, DublinTrader, russellc. Russell I remember your posts on some other AR threads too.

grottyash, you bring up another point preferring the Thorens. Well, I opened that door by looking at already refurbished vintage tables.

Right now, I will either go for the cheap one as suggested...

or wait for a fully restored table later. If I wait, then the question of which one, ES-1, Thorens or even Linn will come up again.
 
If I wait, then the question of which one, ES-1, Thorens or even Linn will come up again.
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I would avoid playing the What If game if I could. It never turns out good. You need to get it while you can.
 
grottyash said:
P.S It wasn't done in 1961. Check the records - the Ariston, engineered by Linn, was the first, and that was around 1973.
Click to expand...

I know what the records are.......Ed Villchur used Mitch Cotter's ideas and was the first to mass produce the three point sprung suspension table in 1961. Thorens then picked up the ball a few years later.

That is the "engineering". The "fit and finish" is in the spindle, platters, etc.
Trust me, the AR can be taken to that "fit and finish"
 
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