The BEST turntable ever built

[analogous]

But, pardon me Analogous, that EMT was a pro
broadcast TT never ever intended for consumer
use and even now unaffordable for 99,999% of
us except some nice Italian opthalmologists...

EMT decks were available to consumers. But like a Ferrari, the decks were out of range for most people.

It certainly is no longer available "out of the box"
like one can buy any of the VPI range now, given
more than ample funds and a craving to own one.

True. But that's not my point. My point is that they awarded a deck that is no better than a deck made 56 years ago. How does this award thing work? Is a deck awarded the product of 2009 better than the product of 1999 and so on? Or is no improvement needed in order to win?

And as far as your knocking Stereophile staff is
concerned I guess you are suffering from a bad
variant of Tea Party Complot Syndrome: Dont
believe anybody, no matter how competent or
experienced

The people at The Audio Critic are competent. The people at Stereophile are competent too, but only in the areas of lies and deceit. And they have tons of experience in it.

[TNTTNT]

I am surprised this one was not mentioned yet, Denon DP-100M.



I would love to play a record and sit back and try this one. I guess there are a whole string of top flight Jap decks which some might propose.

[Dadimo]

Lets not forget the humble beginnings, maybe not the Best sounding or best looking , but gets my vote....
The Cylinder gave birth to the 78 and the Lp.

[LousyTourist]

my turntable is the best ever built.

By my interpretation of best that is.

[starterwiz]

Kuzma Stabi XL4.


At least according to these guys. I've never heard or seen one. Interesting reads here.

http://www.high-endaudio.com/RC-Tables.html

[J.D.]

The crooks and liars at Stereophile awarded the "VPI Super Scoutmaster Reference" 2009 Analog Source Component of the Year.

This 1953 turntable is probably still unchallenged as the best ever.
But Stereophile awards a turntable that is 56 years behind the competition! Of course, to Stereophile, the EMT 927 never happened because it would otherwise embarrass its advertisers.

How very true. If you put on the Stereophile* hat (and yes, it has a sporty feather that wouldn't embarrass any family's weird uncle), then a lot of things never happened, or happened differently than we know .... For example, the "idler" concept only happened to prove that inescapable rumble was curable only by long rubber bands and tiny motors, and that an Emt is a guy who shows up when your pacemaker goes a little squiffy.

(*no fremer dis, but meant to stand in for the retail-marketplace charade of audio "developments"; they wear that same ridiculous hat over at absolute sound and hifi+ ...)

[NickT]

As with all these things, most of us will never get to see or hear 99.9% of these Rolls-Royce money TT's so we vote for what grabs us emotionally. So I'll have any one of these please http://www.oobject.com/category/most-ex ... urntables/

[Bigears]

This is interesting. There are two camps appearing on this thread. First camp is the "best TT sonically" and second camp seems to be "the most expensive" as probably googled!. Few seem to be posting with personal experience.

Its a tricky one though...isn't it?. Best I've heard are, well two different ones but rated equally. One was a Mk3 Oracle Delphi with a Grace unipivot/ATOC9 and the other a michell Orbe/smeV/Dyna cart (forget which one). The latter a bit like the Gyro but better bass...that's about all.

Prettiest is IMHO, my fathers Transcription's Hydraulic Reference (which Michell later built in Belfast under licence, and many wrongly attribute the design to John Michell).

Best for groundbreaking (or should that be "market breaking) neutrality in its day has to be the LP12, but hey, the Thorens TD160 was also great! Hang on...the Garrard 401 (when fettled in a decent plinth with a decent arm) was equally great.

I give up.

Best turntable? There's no such thing. There is however a list of truely great TT's each with their own characters. I'm very fortunate in that I (think) I have two of them.

If the question was "what would you buy, money no object?" =then thats easy. The latest Oracle Delphi or SME20

[Abandonflip]

Best for groundbreaking (or should that be "market breaking) neutrality in its day has to be the LP12, but hey, the Thorens TD160 was also great! Hang on...the Garrard 401 (when fettled in a decent plinth with a decent arm) was equally great.

"neutrality" and "LP12" in the same sentence - that's something you don't see every day

[LPfan]

ok, he brought the can of worms, who's got the opener??

The can seems to be opened, and the OP is sitting back and enjoying ?

LPfan

[Dadimo]

Some nice eye candy there with some of those high end exotic turntables, thanks!

[Alec124c41]

I'd sure like to hear the Saskia.
http://www.oswaldsmillaudio.com/Products/turntable.html

Cheers
Alec

[Terry Robinson]

Afternoon all:

How about this one: a Clearaudio Statement at $U.S.150 000. Surely the best, but can anyone afford one?




Cheers,

Terry.

[davidsss]

The Continuum Caliburn would also have to be a contender. Last I heard it retailed for about $100k. You can see their web site here: http://www.continuumaudiolabs.com/caliburn.html They are meant to be fantastic.

I do worry about some of the previous ones mentioned. In particular this one:



I have heard that speed stability can be a bit of a problem. On the plus side, those 200,000 Kilogram records play fine on this beast

DS