Need help choosing a turntable

[aguantesoda]

Originally Posted by stelakis1

I think that you should go in the 300 $ area and buy a used turntable my friend, some very good ones are AR EB-101, Thorens TD-160, Systemdek IXX & IXX900, Manticore Mantra. And if you find them with a nice tonearm such as RB250, RB300, SME 3009 SIII, Grace 707 you have a perfectly good turntable that can easily beat many modern ones and much more expensive.
In ebay you can find, if you are patient, a very good deal.

With these models and a proper phono you will be able to enjoy your LPs. And later on maybe upgrade. Even though these turntables are quite good, at least for my standards.

I also prefer suspended decks rather than the others. I believe they offer better decoupling.

My opinion don't go to any cheap dd turntable. If you decide to go this way you should only consider the Technics MKII or a used Lenco L75 (but it will need a lot of work from you to make it really good). But it can be made really beautiful like the one below



And take a look here too for more info.

My 2 cents.

Guau!! This lenco is yours?? It looks great!!

I look into Ebay, but the price´s of the turntable, plus the shipping cost, plus the Tax here, make a very high price to me....
The only alternative I have, is find some in my country; so my insistence with Lenco l 75.
When you say "it will need a lot of work from you to make it really good", what it need to change? tonearm? cartridge?

Thanks for the response stelakis1.

[a.wayne]

I keep hearing about DD technics tables and really have to ask . Why ? These tables were nothing special 30 years ago, why now ?


I would have to believe it would be the worst choice available to one for good sonics , Isolation is the name of the game DD are the worst for that ..

[Shaun]

Try asking "Why not?". Look at the specs of turntables like the SL-1200 and the SP10MkII; you'll see that noise figures are very low. There is a lot of anti-hype about direct drives (e.g., "cogging" and "speed hunting") that is simply not true (at least, not of the better turntables). Yes, the cheaper direct drives might be problematic, but I never understood why people would want to use anything cheap. Remember that your records were probably cut on a direct drive lathe, and most radio music was replayed on direct drive turntables. Thus: "Why not direct drive?".

[a.wayne]

Again "noise" start comparing your DD to a good remote drive , isolated table and you will hear the difference .....

[Shaun]

Originally Posted by a.wayne

a good remote drive , isolated table and you will hear the difference .....

Hmm... sounds exotic... not what this thread is about, really. I'm sure that there are all sorts of schemes to get noise to undetectable levels. Pragmatically, though, it simply has to be good enough. I have had various Thorens turntables and various Technics direct drives. I am happy to report that noise was not a problem with any of them. Right now I am enjoying a Technics SL-10 (direct drive) and a Yamaha PF-1000 (belt drive); neither of these have noise problems. However, I'm sure that if I did a critical comparison of noise levels between them, one of them would be a loser. And that would spoil my fun unnecessarily.

[rongon]

start comparing your DD to a good remote drive , isolated table and you will hear the difference .....

I keep hearing about DD technics tables and really have to ask . Why ? These tables were nothing special 30 years ago, why now ?

This is a subject that has caused a lot of overheated discussion in the last five years or so. It seems the idea of a DJ-table competing with true hifi products offends some. I know I didn't believe it when I first heard about it...

I've had several decent belt-drive turntables over the years. Back in '80s, I first had an AR-Xa with the stock arm (realigned and lubricated). It sounded good but any footfalls would send the needle rocketing off the record. Then I tried a Thorens TD166, but that was just OK. I didn't know at the time that the TD160 was the mid-price table to get in the Thorens line, or that the TD125 would become a certifiable classic. My last belt-drive 'table was a harman-kardon T60C with silicon lubricated stock arm ("by ITO"), Grado Signature cartridge and external power supply. The stock 'table was $350 new. The T60C was quite OK, but its motor died. It lasted about 20 years, so I can't complain.

I wanted to get a new 'table that would be reliable for a long time. I asked around, and folks told me the Technics SL-1200MK2 is a good, solid turntable with a decent arm, that could be made to sound very good indeed. Spare parts are readily available, and there are lots of mods to increase performance (check out KAB ELECTRO ACOUSTICS). So I bought a stock SL-1200MK2 with a Denon DL-110 cartridge. Less than USD $600 for the whole thing, and it worked perfectly, no obsessive tweaking necessary.

The medium-weight arm on the SL1200 works well with Denon MC carts like the DL-110 or DL-160. It took me a couple of days to get the cartridge aligned in the headshell to my satisfaction, but the removable headshell made that a lot easier than it would have been on a Rega tonearm. With the cartridge aligned correctly the SL1200 sounds really, really good. It has much better bass and presence than my T60C did, and the DL-110 tracks much better than the Grado did. The SL1200 has absolutely rock-solid rotation speed. I never hear any kind of speed fluctuation, either big or tiny. I guess my only complaint is that there isn't as big or "airy" a soundstage as I got from the TC60C. But the solid imaging and palpable presence more than make up for that, at least for me.

I firmly believed the line that direct-drive was inferior to sprung-suspension belt-drive, but I believe now that it's the implementation that counts. Both can be done very well.

BTW, the best turntable I ever heard in my life is a DD, the Mitchell Cotter B1 with Fidelity Research FR66 arm.

I heard the Cotter directly compared to a rebuilt/lubricated Garrard 301 on a massive birch plywood plinth, with the same FR66 arm. A friend of mine was auditioning the Cotter for purchase and invited me over to compare it to his 'table (the 301). My friend and I both preferred the Cotter. He bought it. Direct-drive and all...

That said, there are plenty of junk DD tables, just like there are lots of crappy BD tables.

The SL1200 just happens to be a great deal at this time. Add a Denon high-output moving coil cartridge and you have about as good a budget setup as I know of.

The only competition would be from the likes of Rega, maybe a P2, but I'm not up on all the latest budget belt-drives. I don't know about the P1.

[Standard disclaimer:] Just my opinion, so YMMV...

--

[a.wayne]

Hello Rongon,

I have had in the past the same technics tables you are discussing and it did not hold a candle to the competition at the time , well apart from being less expensive than better performing full isolation type tables.

I do believe you can get better sound over another table if it is not setup right and I'm sure the technics with a good arm and cartridge combination can sound good , but better than a thorens, rega, AR, Linn , i don't think so IME...

All of the above are available reasonably today ........

[rongon]

Hi a.wayne,

Fair enough. What would you recommend in a new turntable-with-tonearm for ~$500?

[a.wayne]

Originally Posted by rongon

Hi a.wayne,

Fair enough. What would you recommend in a new turntable-with-tonearm for ~$500?

New........


Sorry i only buy used today Many to choose from in the 500.00 + range as was previously listed.

a few :


http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls....08091&/Rega-P1
http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls....or-+-cartridge
http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls....LP-12-Valhalla
http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls....Music-Hall-MM5
http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls....orens-td166mk6
http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls....&/VPI-HW-19-Jr.

[Fiddlefye]

Originally Posted by rongon

I firmly believed the line that direct-drive was inferior to sprung-suspension belt-drive, but I believe now that it's the implementation that counts. Both can be done very well.

I fall into this camp as well. I'm running a couple of BD tables and one DD and while they sound quite different from each other I wouldn't say that noise is an issue in any case. The one big difference between a good suspended belt drive and a good direct is that with most of the former there needs to be considerable thought given to how the arm couples with the platter and in a really effective direct it will usually be the isolation between the two (as well as the quietness of the drive) that will get the job done. With the suspended table it is the partnership you're hearing, whereas with a heavy plinth you're really pretty much hearing what the arm and cartridge has to say, no?