Hi 853. You have decided you will always prefer vanilla milkshakes. I have not. I don't own a milkshake, am only on a tasting journey, and don't need to make my mind up till I do.
I liked belts till I heard the Schopper, and the 124 till I heard the Blackstone (there goes your bias theory) and love the sp10 which I heard. The schopper has an used market and much cheaper than Blackstone.
Your objective might be to drink a milkshake. Mine is to taste milkshakes. There is no need for me to have similar biases as I am not drinking it.
Also, if you go on a pub crawl drinking beer, your taste will change as you move along. Most don't do the pub crawl but always visit their local pub to drink whatever drink.
Also, please note that I did not like apogee for two years and cancelled my first visit to Christoph after a scintilla I heard here. The love affair started after that (with apogees, not Christoph)
Many won't believe it, but I did do some of my Lampi trips to try and stress it to dislike it.
A couple of speakers I really loved, like tune audio Anima, I stressed enough till I did not like them, and then moved on.
Ps: I wanted to say pintxo tour instead of pub crawl, but some might not get the reference
Hi Bonzo,
Part of my objective is to work out whether my bias for 301/401s is justified because all other turntables are inferior to it at the things that matter most to me, or unjustified because I’ve purposely limited myself to experiences with other turntables that are not iterations of the 301/401. The
ultimate objective, however, is to build a system that best represents those biases having performed a degree of due diligence in first challenging them.
So in fully acknowledging I have a bias for the 301/401, the best I can try and do is better understand why I have the bias I have, and hold it lightly - hence my interest in your continued experiences with the 124.
At the same time, despite having lived without a system for eight years in order to better understand what I’m looking for and avoid overcapitalising on a system that represents a bunch of hasty generalisations of which I’ve been guilty of in the past, I can’t go on taste-testing forever. It’s fun, but time consuming, and as much as I enjoy cave-tasting champagnes and reds in dark cellars, the ultimate purpose is to figure out which ones I’ll then buy to drink in the comfort of my own living room - that, for me, is the context in which I derive the most pleasure. Pontification comes easily to me (can you tell?). At some stage I’m going to need to put my money where my mouth is and assemble a system, accepting its strengths/weaknesses within the limitations of my budget/room. That may indeed include a very heavily modified 301/401. It may not. Time will tell.
My point (perhaps poorly articulated with milkshake flavours) was this: Data can be made to represent anything, and - speaking for myself - most often my own biases. Like I gladly admit to above, the question I need to ask myself is: are my data points sufficiently diversified and contextualised within a pool of outliers? Do I really prefer the 301/401 because of an inherent strength they and they alone possess, or have I simply sought out better iterations of their ilk at the expense of others?
As I say in my P.P.S., the utility value of hearing multiple iterations of the 124 is much appreciated. Schopper, Hanze and Swissonor are all variations on a theme, and in all likiehood, the best of the breed. Had this thread been entitled “More on restored Garrards” (or indeed Lencos, Micro Seikis, Commonwealths - this is, after all, an endless topic), in which the Schopper, Hanze and Swissonor were listened next to the best Garrards, perhaps the current conclusions would have shifted. That the Blackstone has introduced another data point as an outlier is something that for me personally adds more value to your existing ones, if only because it better contextualises them.
This is
not meant as a criticism, though if my wife read this she would probably say that it is. It’s acknowledging the first point I made above: restores are a reflection of the biases of the restorer and therefore impossible to generalise on. The blue Hanze being “an easy choice over the 401” is possibly best understood that in that particular context, the Hanze was an easy choice over that particular restored 401.
In writing “these restored 124s are (your) choice of the vintage idlers” I’m not sure it tells me they're definitively superior in ways that matter most to you, or simply whether there are iterations of 301/401s, Lencos, EMTs and Commonwealths that haven’t been been heard (yet). That the "SME 30/2, TW Raven AC3, Brinkmann Lagrange, and Micro Seiki 5000 have been replaced by these (Thorens)" doesn't mean there aren't others replacing belt-drives with Garrards, Lencos, EMTs or Commonwealths (or other belt drives), and it certainly doesn't mean those idlers are being replaced by 124s.
Again, thanks for the leg work.
853guy
P.S. Yeah, I didn’t get the pintxtos ref. It must be a DINKs things.
P.S.S. Nice line with the Christoph crush. I laughed.