What do you mean you “heard” the turntable

Whart,

your experience is valid, but  only because you are comparing with in your system with all other variables being equal. 

 My problem is people on this form say they were here or there and they heard a turntable on a completely different system in a completely different place and they say how much more transparent or how much more clear or clean or better bass or whatever. How can they be sure of what they are hearing. To me they’re hearing what they wanna hear.  I’m not saying what they are hearing is not better than what they have heard but they can’t contribute, for sure, what aspect made the sound better so how can they so easily recommend something under these conditions? 

@last_lemming - I agree that it is very hard to find an opportunity at retail where you can make such comparisons. I don't read the magazines much any more, so I don't know what they are doing in terms of turntable evaluations.
There was a very good shoot-out a number of years ago in HiFi+ on line stages where Roy G. and Alan Sircom compared 5 or 6 units, did in-depth reviews and second opinions and that seemed pretty 'spot on' as the Brits say. I owned one of the units being tested -(not the actual unit under test but another serial number of the same model) and the review seemed to match my experience in terms of the unit's strengths and weaknesses.
As for turntable comparisons, I suppose the best resource for this may be that handful of well-heeled audiophiles who run multiple tables, arms and cartridges. There have been 'visits' by other audiophiles on the forums where they discussed what they heard and posted about it. And, to the extent there is some bias by one person, perhaps that gets ironed out when multiple listeners are involved.  

Unless the comparisons are done in a known system and lived with for a period of time with the ability to go back and forth between the tables being reviewed the comparisons really aren't vallid, another words what @whart  said. Also on the Stillpoints LPS he hit it on the head, I find myself going back and fourth between it an a BDR screw down clamp depending on the album I am playing. As a rule, when the upgrade bug bites and it is a piece I love, I never sell it till I have lived with the new piece and satisfied it is an upgrade.

I have a new Technics SL-1200G and vintage SL-MK1600 MK2.  With all things being equal except the tables, trust me, I can mostly certainly hear the difference.

I have some very nice recordings of Doug MacLeod , Terry Evans, and Sam McClain. They are all on the Audioquest label and recorded with all Audioquest wire in the recording chain. They all have a very discernible Audioquest signature. I have a whole slew of records recorded all over the place that were all mastered at The Mastering Lab by Doug Sax. Because they cover performers as diverse as Linda Ronstadt, Nelson Riddle and Jackson Browne I could play those all night long and unless you know Doug Sax if you were paying attention at all you would almost certainly assign the Doug Sax signature sound to some component in my system. Which flattering as that would be would be wrong.

The more transparent a system the less it imposes on the signal and the more it becomes whatever signal happens to be passing through. There's one record I could hardly stand to play through the first side. It made my system so unlistenable! Reading the jacket I discovered it was proudly recorded using all Mark Levinson electronics including some mixing panel he designed. So people who can't afford to have their lives ruined by his components can do it with his recordings, I guess.

The vast majority of recordings are of course nowhere near as distinctive as any of these. Which make it easy for us to be lulled into the illusion we are listening to the system we see, forgetting "the system" extends all the way back to the recording venue.

To pick any one component out from all of that, play a few cuts and know what it sounds like, man, them's some good ears.