Chris,
I am very interested in the models of the older units near my budget. I may even pick one up for myself
These following units have heavy cast aluminum chassis and the same tone arm as the SL-1200MKII:
SL-Q2
SL-Q3
SL-1400MKII
SL-1500MKII
SL-1600MKII
The first 4, you can find pretty cheaply in near mind condition. The SL-Q2 and SL-Q3 will need custom adapter plates and complete disassemble of the internals to retrofit another arm. The SL-1400 and up should be able to use the same adapter plate as the SL-1200, with the possible exception of having to drill mount holes on the deck's mounting lip under the adapter to fit this one difference. I am currently doing a major work on a SL-Q2 for someone, and I will be putting a very high quality tone arm on it and having a custom arm board adpater machined at a local machine shop. I also removed all mechanical parts related to arm movement(the original arm was auto return) and I added 2 layers of Dynamat Extreme under the aluminum chassis, making this an extremely inert chassis. It is also getting many coats of black laquer for a piano black finish. Including my labor, the eBay purchase price of table and the arm(a very special deal was had on the arm though) and the custom machined parts, this table is probably going to cost around $450-$500 in the end to the customer. It will be easily comparable in performance to $2000 or higher range tables when complete, all things considered.
I am also going to look into modifying the stock Technics arm since I have the one from this table that is basically mine to do with as I wish. The arm itself has superb bearings and is a great design in terms of the gimbal system, etc. The weakness is the arm tube is resonant, and so is the headshell and it's mount. I do know that there is an aftermarket headshell that is far superior to the stock one; so that is a partial solution.
There are some classic 80's tables that need no modifying that are superb/top level performance as is. The problem is, they are so technically sophisticated that if they fail, there is often no way to fix them. Refer to Denon DP-59. This unit has superb build and finish. Top quality main bearing. Precision speed controller. The arm is CPU controlled. It has vibration sensors and over all motion sensors in the arm. It has active actuators and servos controlling the arm. It corrects tracking/warping errors and cancels resonance using a feedback actuator. Of course, if the CPU or other exclusive ICs go in the controller circuit, the arm is junk and unfixable. Same goes for the various parts like servos, etc.; no way to source these parts for repair. A mint condition unit will sell for $600 on average on eBay. But it's actual performance, objective, is pretty much as good as you can get at any price. A cheaper, and very very good option is also the Yamaha PX-2 and PX-3 linear arm tables. But these also have CPU controlled arms, though not the same level of sophistication as the Denon unit mentioned above. These are not pretty and have an industrial look, but are pure quality none the less. You should get these for far cheaper than the Denon unit. Again, buy at your own risk and hope the sophisticated systems remain operational. It should be no surprise that not many audiophile respect these sophisticated tables - and may often make claims of inferior sound quality - pretty much claims as valid as claims of the high end cables they use being superior.
Today's shanny size table makers can't hope to replicate the level of technology found in these high end mega-corporation turn tables - simply due to the massive resources that were available and used to develop many of these 80's hi-tech units. Not that there are not some great tables from the current day small manufacturers of turn tables. But you generally have to move well past into the $1500-2000 dollar mark before you get to tables that are at the highest objective performance range today. Please note that I refer to practical maximum performance for an accurate/neutral tone arm and plynth and accurate speed control system. I don't have any reason or evidence to believe that a $30,000 400lb. table actually does anything special or unique except to look impressive, while there are known issues with most low cost tables under the $1000 range, such as inferior arms with resonant behavior(I am not saying that all have these problems)and/or mediocre bearings, resonant chassis and poor speed stability.
-Chris
