If this sounds like YOUR Turntable story, please share your final chapter


You had a nice budget ($2k-$4K) table, which you enjoyed for years. It always served up the analog goods, and you always felt as if you were in a good place. However, like many of us, you have audiophilia nervosa. Having succumbed to this mystical force that commanded you to upgrade, you took the leap to the next plateau. You immediately heard the advantages of what your new, well designed table was offering up. It was quieter, music emerged from a blacker background. It had tighter, more articulate bass.....mids were clear, layered, involving, yet organized.... Highs were more extended,  filling your listening area with a more believable, 3D presence. You were in awe, for a while! Fast forward to the middle of the story. Even though the table was more substantial, and did many things better than your baby boomer table, you soon realized it appealed more to the brain than your heart. It could tend toward the drier side with many of your go-to vinyl treasures. You ultimately realized that while the new table received more check marks on the audiophile checklist, it was not as engaging on an emotional level. Let me cut to the chase. So you took one or two wrong exits, but you found your way back. In doing so, you once again found that engaging, special something, analog is capable of delivering. Which table brought you back to the analog promise land?
fjn04
This would not be my story, I never chase that ultimate hi-fi sound only ultimate engagement and musicality. Original Nottingham Spacedeck is one of those tables you referred to, preferably with Nottingham or Walker motor control.
Somewhat familiar, but not totally true in my case. Started with VPI HW-19 Jr and worked up to VPI HW-19 mk IV.
Yes, then the mystical force commanded me to upgrade, and I did to a Basis 2500 Signature w/ Calibrator base. Yes, the Basis was tighter, more articulate, quieter, music emerged from a blacker background, yada, yada, yada.

Years later I am now using a VPI Prime, and happy. I did not move on from the Basis because I tired of it's revealing nature though. I found that it mated very well with a Klyne 7PX5.0 phono stage and a ZYX 4-D X cartridge.
Plenty for the brain, but also very natural sounding for the heart.

My story ends with the downgrade due to job loss. Not as romantic ending as your story, but these things happen. I actually downgraded to a VPI Scout in 2010, but moved back up to the Prime in 2016.
I'm hoping this is my last turntable........and not in the sense that I'm hoping to die soon. ;^)

Last table or not I can't know but I do know that if I ever upgrade it will be along the line, not necessarily the same brand. I also know that I can first upgrade the arm and cartridge and get that motor controller. So I doubt that I will replace it in the next at least ten years. Pear Audio turntables, especially their top of the line model get interesting reviews that catch my attention. They think that it is quite special and a hell of a table/arm for the price. They may be right, if I had $10k for that I would definitely audition it, but I have no urge. In fact, the strongest links in my system are Spacedeck table and Purist Neptune RCA cables, so I got a lot of things to upgrade before even thinking of upgrading the table.

fjn, your scenario has been the heart of the argument for the Linn Sondek table since it's introduction in the early 70's. That it is the ability of a table, in fact all links in the hi-fi chain, to play music, not just make sound, that should be the basis for judging it's performance. That there are other tables that perhaps excel in purely sonic terms---tighter bass, more extended highs, etc---but none that "play" music as well. That makes reproduced music feel and move (temporally) the way live music does. Hardcore subjectivists even speak of a table's ability to express the "intent" of the musicians and singers. That's about as subjective as one can get!

There is no set of measurements that correlates with or predicts a tables ability in this regard; it can be discerned only by listening.