I am considering a couple of these, XA or XB which is better? Which ones should a guy stay away from? I have spent some time at vinyl nirvana just looking for some opinions :scratch2:

I am considering a couple of these, XA or XB which is better? Which ones should a guy stay away from? I have spent some time at vinyl nirvana just looking for some opinions :scratch2:
I have both tables...and I like the XB better although it doesn't have a real wood base. I like the XB for the cueing mechanism otherwise I have no preference when it comes to the sound they make (or don't make as the case may be).

better, They both are astouding tables. I just recently picked up an XA and this was the turntable that washed away all my fears and concerns with the complexities of turntables. A very sweet sounding and elegantly designed deck.

Main thing to look for is wear (wobble) on the tonearm pivots. I loved the one I had back in the 70's.

Actually the pivots are about as easy as possible to adjust -- just pointed end screws. What really is a problem is stripped threads on the headshell, or lack entirely of headshell -- they are much harder to find than the table itself -- you'd think that for every table there ought to be at least one headshell out there, but no such luck. Also worth making sure the tonearm wires and connectiions work nicely -- big pain to fix.

Well, I was actually referring to the nylon cups the pivot screws mate to. Those have a tendancy to go to hell after awhile. Luckily (back then) Underground Sound in Memphis kept all the parts for the AR TT's and even made their own upgraded version.

I've owned both XA & XB TTs, and my vote goes for the XA. The reason being that the overall asthetic is superb when total & complete simplicity is maintained. The cue lever is useless on the XB, since it's easy as hell to cue manually. Plus, the XB has vinyl veneer (barf bag, please).

Both sound unreal.

Try to get an XA with the later non-drum style tonearm pivot base. Less potential Delrin woes. I've got the earlier one (works great), but AR made upgrade kits back in the day for owners who wanted to upgrade their XA's to the latter more efficient design.

Anybody got an extra set of the nylon cups they wanna sell me right now???

Posted twice, yes, but what's not to like!

http://img438.imageshack.us/img438/3627/dsc05106dv3.jpg