Hi guys,
yeah, I know,...I oughtta make up my mind soon,
as I'm hunting down TT bargain's for some months now.
But, by now I narrowed my choices. A s/h LP12 is too hard too find in Holland and also too expensive. (compared to Britisch prices)
A Dutch analog-expert offered me a nice wood-feneer s/h AR ES-1 TT with a hadcock (?) arm. I dont know what is gonna cost,but I'll know pretty soon.
Any of you lads out there who knows this TT and/or arm and can anybody tell if it's any good ?
like, how does is compare to a Rega planar3 or the LP12?
Is it a bargain buy (in mint condition) and will it make sense in my Nait-2 / 3.5+fc / Kan-II's / Sound-factory Tripod system ?
Unfortunatly,I can't try the TT before August 3,but I'm just curious of other peoples experience with this deck.
Alco.
Posted on: 23 July 2001 by Ron Toolsie
The AR deck (I dont know how the ES deck compares with the AR77 one)is somewhere in the same league (possibly slightly lower) than an equally vintaged Thorens 160 and hence a P3. Both of these suffered from the original arms, and really needed upgrading in this department. The ARs moulded rubber mat should also be replaced with a felt one.Neither of these options would come close to a well preserved well set up LP12/LV-X combo.
I used the Hadcock GH228 for several years. In spite of its somewhat vestigial appearance it handled moving coil cartridges with great finesse as it did the very high compliance MM ones (I used a Sonus Blue label, compliant enough to be used as a seismometer!). I found that the damping was not as important as getting the azimuth right, which was easy enough to do with the eccentric counterweight. In their time the Hadcock sold for the same price as the SME2 (which it easily bettered), which was circa 50 UKP in 1978. Several years ago I saw that that model was re-released at a price of over 200 UKP.
Ron
Dum spiro audio
Dum audio vivo
http://homepages.go.com/~rontoolsie/index1.html
Posted on: 23 July 2001 by Phil Barry
I compared an ES-1 with Linn Basik to an LP12/Basik in 1984 - no comparison. The Linn was at least twice as good, which it should have been since it was close to twice the cost (about $975-550).
Per theory, the best TT with moderate arm will better a modrate TT with the best arm.
Of your choices, I'd suggest a new P3, if you can't get a used LP12.
