@RobH - don’t ever discount the value of tactile pleasure. I use to have a ritual for listening to my LPs and went to great lengths making sure I had the proper vinyl sleeves, the static taken care of and the VPI vacuum cleaner making sure the vinyl was cleaned properly. It was an absolute “anal retentive” process. If I would have stayed with vinyl I would probably had 4,000 albums in immaculate condition and love spinning vinyl… not a hater… a lover… just don’t have 40years to acquire an LP collection I could obsess over… 
Spendor SP-1 speakers, museum quality.
Vanderteen 2ce Signature speakers.
I had a Linx Nebula for a number of years, I think with EPOS ES11. A fine amplifier.
Two items come to mind, for sound and looks, the JVC JAS-11 and Marantz CD94
I think of enjoying vinyl more as a ritual than anal retentive. The focus being on the music, not the mechanism.
Transcriptors Skeleton turntable
@jschander - That is just Bad A$$… what did that weigh and is it glass or Lexan? Also, looks like (4) pylons?
Glass, 4 pylons… I had one as well. A unique feature was the “Vestigial” tone arm. Horizontal bearing was in the usual place, but the vertical was at the end of the tonearm on that round plate that holds the cartridge. Tracking force was set by a string that travels back to the pillar. It did track very well.
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It was glass, and I believe that it weighed around 35-40 pounds. The 4 pylons were filled with hydraulic fluid, so the arms would “float” not only up and down but side to side.
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Benz Glider MC (HO version)
Merlin VSM-MX
I had one of these and my son wishes I hadn’t sold it. Even my wife liked it. I did not like the Unify unipivot arm, the thing collected dust and no protection for the stylus. Weighed about 38kg I seem to remember, I had it wall mounted.
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Acoustat Spectra 22 electrostatic speakers
McCormack DNA-1 power amp
Besides the reel2reel I once had this one…nice geometric design I liked and fantastic built quality.
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So many memories in this thread, I have to put together my first kind of high end setup from more than 30 years ago put together out of some internet pictures. Would be not so bad even today except for the meanwhile aged but still nice looking CD player.
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That complete Revox series was the High End reference in that time. From a Sound Quality perspective Revox played a couple of leagues higher than BRAUN, but both were Icons of that time.
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Did not sell it, it was stolen from my car, but my 160 GByte iPod classic with the click wheel. Most of my ripped CD’s on it, Apple Lossless of course and still plenty room to spare. Great innovative device that changed the music industry.
Still use iTunes, will be replaced by Apple Music in the next System update. Hopefully Bit Perfect is on it such that I can easy transfer my library including the DSD files.
Likewise my Sony Walkman, it was a metal case high quality edition, that one played through my studies when I had to travel by train and bycicle a lot. It wore out and I ditched it, but it was a great device. Equally changing how we enjoyed music.
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As a Teenage Kid, I used to dream about their Reel to reels, Tangential Tracking Turntables, and Dolby C HX Pro Cassette Decks.
I also could only dream about Revox or BRAUN. My dad had bought the UHER mini stereo set, with the large UHER Omega drive Reel to Reel and the large Canton Ergo speakers with 12” bass driver and the Thorens TD 105 turntable.
It’s al 40 years old and still works, I got that TD 105 from him.
So His stereo trickled down to my room. My first stereo was an old Loewe tube receiver with integrated speakers. Listened to SWR3 all days long. Then got a ITT Schaub Lorenz cassette deck and a UHER Uni Royal small size 4 track reel to real, it’s heads had to be polished every time I used it, I wonder if it scraped the music from the tape or whether it read it, but hey I owned a Reel to Reel, it had a separate read head to the recording head, so I felt like a pro, being able to directly listen to the music I recorded from the SWR3 pop/rock music FM channel from the Loewe Tube Receiver. I never regretted replacing the maintenance intensive equipment though.
The Thorens TurnTable I like as much as my Swiss Automatic Mechanical watch. Later in my life 10 years ago I had to be in Sainte Croix, Canton of Vaud al lot for business, the little town in the Jura mountains where the Thorens story all started. They still build mechanical music boxes there, al wound up, in the most pressures metal in wood inlay finishes and they sound amazing. Less choice of music than with Roon of course. But people buying those marvels of handcrafting buy them because they value the art of handcrafting and the amazing shapes and finishes that can be made. Regarding cost, the sky is the limit, for the very expensive ones the hardened metal tooth rods can be replaced to play different tunes.
Reuge mechanical Music Box from Sainte Croix Switzerland.
Remarkable in the age of streaming music.
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