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Were these rips made with the same equipment? And are you seriously extoling the virtues of an 80k+ table via YouTube clips played back on cellphones and tablet speakers?

It shines through in the most negligeable way. I would then say that clip #1 is the clear winner equity wise since the second clip perhaps sounds 2x better yet the price difference is likely between 160-500x. If you then recorded the "poor" table using the same pressing and same cartidge and same recording equipment I would expect the sonic difference on YouTube to be non existent....

In the meantime could not resist to buy a $20 shellac-repress from the '50s of New Orleans Shuffle by The Halfway House Orchestra. I expect that 78 rpm sound will be the winner. But, something different Michael, you know, what we analogplanet-followers are waiting for!? Your review of Bowies Blackstar!

Having listened to the couple of John Fahey clips, I am annoyed that I passed on his music up to now. I have Pentangle, Bert Jansch and John Renbourn LPs but for some strange I never 'bothered' with John Fahey. In saying I don't see too many of his LPs over this side of the Pond.

Another artist I have only gotten into recently is Nic Jones, I saw a documentary on him and was blown away. HIs guitar playing is so unique and he has a voice to die for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlFKwY_YgZ4

James, Dublin, Ireland.

Listening to Eagles Greatest Hits and it still sounds great. Yes, a $250K+ TT or more sounds better, but one does not have to do that to enjoy vinyl as Michael has made clear infinite times. Spend a little more on the Cart and Phono Stage and magic will happen.

Not the focus of this thread but what the hey:

I saw Fahey at the Cellar Door here in DC in the early '80s. He brought a six-pack of Bud bottles with him onto the stage and drank the entire thing during his set. Not so surprising really given what weak swill Bud is but it's a fun story!

Also, Newbury Comics, which has a cool line of colored-vinyl reissues of this & that, offers two of John's LPs:

https://www.newburycomics.com/search?q=fahey

Neither clip do I hear TT noise, seems both tables are isolated well, no motor noises.
The top clip if the LP is cleaned better will sound better, the bottom clip obviously had better cleaning attention...Not fair.

I also assume the cartridge and phono stage of the bottom clip is easily superior to the top clip setup..not fair also.

In these two clips I don't see how the trillion $$ dollar Air Force One TT does itself justice. Trophy goes to the top TT for sounding pretty damn good....

"... compare the sonic difference between a really great turntable and a really poor one."

Anybody should be able to figure out that a super expensive turntable setup will sound better than a cheap one...

But what exactly is being compared here? For one thing, how do you know it's a "poor turntable"? There is no actual video of the turntable in that clip... or even a picture of the record so we know what pressing we're listening to. Differently mastered records sound different, ya know. You say the poor clip is from "a reissue", but how do you know? But if it is the reissue (the one with the black/gold 180 Gram hype sticker), you would hear a pretty big difference between that and your original pressing, playing both on your turntable (your setup would probably reveal differences that a more modest setup would veil).

If that other clip is the reissue, that's got to be one of the noisiest modern pressings I've ever heard. So we're also comparing a very dirty record to a clean one, whatever the turntable and pressing is.

We are also hearing much lower bitrate audio on the other clip, which isn't "HD" like yours. The audio is encoded at about half the bitrate. So there's that difference too.

And then there's the difference of how the audio was recorded to be put on YouTube. There are hundreds of ways to do it, after the signal leaves your phono pre, with lots of degrees of varying quality...

Anyways I'm not disparaging your clip, I'm glad you posted it! It does indeed sound fantastic, even on YouTube. I just think the comparison doesn't have much meaning, since we're comparing a lot of other factors (including unknowns) besides the turntable setups.

The speed stability of the first cut is the biggest clue that the turntable itself isn't of high quality. A cleaner record and a better cartridge would have improved things, but if the turntable can't maintain a steady speed you will never get truly quality sound.