my earlier "5 different turntable" experience was in 2009-2011, at the end of 8 years of owning the Rockport Sirius III turntable. i had observed others enjoying the Technics SP-10 Mk2 and MK3, as well as the Garrard 301, with updated plinths and modern tonearms, and wanted to see how close those might approach the Rockport. there was also a fun factor involved in owning a few turntables that appealed to me too. at that point i was a bit of a direct drive snob in that it seemed to me a superior drive system. working with Steve Dobbins i acquired a SP-10 Mk2 plus a Garrard 301 to begin with, then a SP-10 Mk3. next came the Dobbins 'The Beat' direct drive....a new design based on various tt's Steve had been impressed with, and then finally the Wave Kinetic NVS.
an interesting aspect of this was that the turntables i liked most at the end of this period, did not exist when i began that process only a couple years earlier. they were reactions to a market demand which was increasing for sure.
what i learned was that i mostly always played the NVS with the Durand Talea tonearm, or the Rockport. the Beat was also in that conversation, i only had the Beat and NVS together for a short time. but overall the performance difference was apparent to me from those 3 to those others, and having all those choices was interesting, but did not really improve my music listening. the exception was on certain music, the Garrard was addictive. but it was limited. i'd say i did not prefer the NVS to the Rockport, but neither did prefer the Rockport to the NVS. but i realized that owning 3, or 4, or 5 turntables was nothing i needed, if i mostly used only one of them.
then in early 2012, my priorities adjusted to acquiring the darTZeel 458 mono blocks plus the new Evolution Acoustics MM7 twin tower speakers; so culling the herd of non essential gear was the prudent thing to do to keep my wife from raising hell on the cash flow side of things. i had fun and learned a lot about turntables and related things, and glad i went through it. for the next 9 years i was a one turntable guy; excepting i had a NOS EMT 948 in my system for a few years which i liked, but did not love. but that was not a tt i owned.
fast forward to a few years ago; i came within 90 days of taking delivery of an AS-2000 from ddk. i'd paid for half in cash. then i had a change of heart. what changed is that i felt it was putting too much of my system assets into one turntable. my NVS was sounding very fine to me, and the dots just did not connect. while having only one turntable was the lesson i had previously learned, my mind was thinking different at this point. now i could see there was more than one turntable drive 'truth'.
looking back no way to ever know if that was the right move. but i think that decision essentially allowed me to add these other turntables this past year.
now we move back to a 30,000 foot view of my system building strategy; and we have to factor where i am on my path. last year i was seeing that i would be retiring in 2-3 years. i had just invested heavily in my digital and really gone all out. the previous year i had purchased my 3rd Studer A-820, so now i needed to give my vinyl my 'end game' attention so i would not need to invest much after retirement. i knew i wanted a great idler, and a great belt drive turntable to go with my NVS direct drive. this time with multiple turntables i wanted all of them to be able to reach the top level of performance. and then live with that for a few years to know i've reached the best i could do with vinyl. then if i only preferred one of them fine, i've figured that out.
so that is the backdrop of why i've added the Saskia model two, and then the CS Port LFT1 this last year.
and at this point i could not be happier. i'm listening to more vinyl than ever, and feel i can really get inside each pressing and music type and find the most magical perspective. not only do i have 3 different high level examples of the drive systems, but also high level examples of a linear tracker tonearm, gimbaled bearing tonearm, and 2 uni-pivots. i have one tt with active isolation, 2 without. now a great mono cartridge too. and.....i have 5 different phono channels; 2 solid state, 3 tubed, with 2 SUT's. so lots of different choices.
i think the lesson for multiple turntables is that people change, system priorities change, maybe you add a second turntable for one reason, then another for a different unrelated reason. we don't system build in a linear fashion. we go with our feelings and impulses. so our decision tree is new around every corner. true; in my case i did eventually have a long view perspective, but no doubt it's fluid.
for me....right now....the best part is in the last month or so i've purchased maybe 75 records, and plan on more each week. the gear stuff is behind me, and it's new vinyl time now. and i just KNOW i will have the right set-up for any pressing.
i do have a new tone arm cable i'll have in a few weeks or so, but zero other gear thoughts in my mind.
sorry if that got a little wordy, but no way to say it simply.
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