What are the qualities of a Honda S2000? It's a balanced sports car leveraging mainstream technologies, well-machined and built for relative simplicity and reliability. No aspect of its operation is intimidating so it can be driven by anyone but it has sufficient engineering and intrinsic performance to warrant elevated driving skills. It's light yet strong, with very high torsional rigidity for an open car and the suspension sophistication to take advantage of the best tire technologies. It's also a holistic design, very well optimized in its balance of dynamic behaviors from the factory, making it pretty much a turnkey sporting car that also happens to be affordable for its performance, and economical to operate.
Unfortunately, not everyone fits in it, but that's another matter.
There are three turntable options on today's new-purchase market that qualify, with or without the $2000 limit for table, arm, cart and phono stage: Technics, Rega (and all its imitators using Rega or Rega-inspired tonearms) and Clearaudio.
I don't own any of them, nor have I ever.
First, Technics. Most people have never heard an SL12XX in a quality hi-fi, so it is often maligned for its resemblance to the many abominable mass-produced direct drive turntables that saturated the market at the time of its birth. Dismissing it for reasons of association is a mistake. I'll say this about direct drive: My early high-end audio indoctrination over 35 years ago included extreme bias in favor of belt-drive turntables built to a high standard. I have Linn, VPI, Pink Triangle, Mission, SOTA, Transcriptors, B&O in my past, along with plenty of experience with the boutique jewelry turntables of the past 15 years. One turntable has lived in parallel with all of those in my systems for 30 years -- the Luxman PD-444 and 441. The PD4XX are direct drive, executed to a very high standard in simple form. It's also a holistic design. No belt-drive turntable has elbowed it aside in my systems, on music merits, in three decades.
The SL-12XX is well executed to a price, but that price is far lower than any other company could market that specific turntable for today. It is a holistic design, built for speed stability, low noise, good resonance control, good isolation of the groove/sylus interface and consistency along with long-term reliability. It's designed to perform well and sound good in real-world systems, at a price anyone interested can afford. The Technics' tonearm is fine; not stellar but fine. It affords a range of tuning via changes in headshells. As a medium mass tonearm it matches up to a broad latitude of available cartridges. Well set-up with proper cartridge, an owner can get enviable sound that won't change. It will stay in adjustment, keep on turning, pretty much behave the same way in two decades as the day you first get it working. As KAB demonstrates, the basic design is responsive to hot-rodding. Well, have at it. But if you just put a set of Aurios Media Bearings under it, that improvement alone will overwhelm any futzing you do with rewiring the tonearm, fluid damping, tonearm replacement, and all the other tweaky nonsense that defeats its simplicity in the first place. The SL-12XX sounds vigorous and alive. Music played from it has energy and drive.
Next, Rega. Let's face it. In a different era of well-capitalized, R&D driven companies operating in a robust hifi market, the Rega P1, P2, P3, P5 and all its imitators, would be considered pathetic hacks. P7 and P9 you start getting into something. Rega turntables are a paradox. Outside of the P9, nothing about them is very good, but they are nevertheless holistic designs that in toto sound better than they should. So in that sense any Rega that fits your budget is S2000-like. Plus if you add their phono cartridges and the way they work with Rega's proprietary 3-point mount, there's almost no futzing for dialing them in.
As material objects, Rega turntables are disappointments for the money. They are almost embarrassing to own, short of the P9. But properly set up, they produce music. Oh, they're indifferent to delivering spot-on speed but a Rega turntable is toneful and smooth. The hifi term "PRaT" seems to have been invented by Rega loyalists to describe something Rega turntables actually don't have, as a distraction to confuse understanding of music reproduction, but no matter. There's a lightness to music spooling out a Rega turntables that is an underlying consistency many people prefer and enjoy. It comes at the cost of tone density, and gravity, however. Rega tonearms have an averageness about them that is less overcast as you go up the line, until the excellent RB1000 reveals the true potential of the design. But again, they offer wide latitude for cartridge compatibility, are easy to set-up and the sonic compromises at the lower prices are predictable, consistent and manageable.
The many aftermarket upgrades to Rega turntables (except the P9) reflect the sorry compromises we have to accept in finished products at moderate prices in turntables circa 2010. Change the bearing, the sub-platter, the plinth, the platter, the tonearm wiring, the motor, the feet....aye, aye, aye. None of the elements are particularly good, but they are balanced in their mediocrity to deliver a synergistic result. I'll say the Rega turntables, outside of the P9, are more Miata than S2000, but the Miata is a balanced lesser-performance, fun car people tend to live with and be satisfied by as-delivered, too.
Next, Clearaudio Concept. I'll argue this is the most S2000-like turntable in the OP's price range. Add an Aurum Classic cartridge and a Nano phono stage and you're at two bills, done. It's a holistic design, as well thought out systemically as the Technics, but belt-drive and with a Schroeder-emulating tonearm. Pick your cart and everything comes set-up from the factory. Take it out of the box, follow a few simple instructions, plug in and drive. I haven't heard a Concept but some people who have think it's better than a VPI Classic. What I can say is that the Concept is an S2000 contender in turntables, on holistic concept and execution and if it sounds competitive, then it's likely your answer.
But I have to say this about the OP's bias against used turntables: What's more S2000-like than my two Luxman PD444s that have required no service in over 30 years, along with the stable and excellent tonearms I've put on them? Both have two tonearms. But let's go to basics. The last PD444 I saw sell was mint and sold for $800. A Rega RB301 or something like a vintage Victor US7045 could go on it for $400. There's a used Jasmine LP2.0SE on Audiogon right now for $600. And almost every week there's a low-hours Denon DL103 here for $200. $2000 spent that way steamrolls any "S2000 equivalent" you can buy new.
Phil
