Present analogue play back designs....Advanced?

Dear Stiltsking: As Tom posted: ++ Turntables are much like the bicycle ...+++++

and yes the today TT take some advantage on " new " materials and the like but the real subject is that the today TT has almost no advantage ( quality performance ) against top vintage TT sample other than warranty and manufacturer direct support that are two very important factors.

If we take tonearms or cartridges the situation is almost the same: with out serious improvements on overall quality performance.
There are a lot of vintage cartridges that outperform many of the today top phono cartridges.

Where IMHO there is a real grow-up is on electronics: phono stage, line stage or phonolinepreamps or amplifiers.

The real thing is that IMHO we have a " shame " of audio high-end due that we customers are a " shame " of customers.

Regards and enjoy the music,
raul.

Thank you all for your input

Is the SME 30 a vintage table? It isn't the cheapest, and it isn't the latest, and it may not be the best, but it has been near the top for 25 or more years and I read that they are still having trouble keeping up with demand.

With vintage tables I was thinking more along the lines of pure innovation, two come to mind the early Platine Verdier and Micro Seiki, brilliant designs.

Advances in materials, CNC manufacturing, and electronics should allow production of a more rigid, precise, and exact record playback system. The question is do you use these advances to make a better system? One you can produce for less but looks nice? Or one that looks uber fancy but doesn't offer real improvements? Unfortunately I think we have too many offerings in the last two categories - real innovation isn't easy.