Howdy folks! Absolute newbie here, just starting into the hobby and still very much learning.
I gotta’ say, audiophiles are both incredibly helpful with their deep knowledge of this world — and simultaneously caused me untold headaches as I tried to pick up equipment! Haha
It was an odyssey and forgive me if any of this is completely incorrect, these were just what I was seeing along the way:
I started out wanting an all-in-one player, thinking there would be quality options and otherwise… only to find out that pretty much anything with a built-in speaker was going to cause playback issues. Learned something right off the bat!
I next switched gears to a ‘set’, a turntable with separate speakers included, only to be scared off by people saying that the quality of all of these components would usually be more than lacklustre.
Ooookay, moving on, I switched to trying to look for a decent budget manual turntable — while trying to keep the budget not far off from my original all-in-one estimates — only to find that it was recommended by many posters, resources, etc for newbies to stick to fully automatic turntables until they get their sea legs.
So I narrowed it down to the usual suspects of Audio-Technica and Sony, and eventually even hit buy on the entry-level automatic Sony option. But something felt off, couldn’t say what, so I cancelled the order (I very rarely get buyers remorse so I took it as a sign).
Started doing a bit more digging and was finding a lot of ‘You’ll want to upgrade in months if you go with either of the above. The sound is going to be noticeably inferior even to a layman’ — and also that modern automatics tend to be more prone to failure because there’s more mechanics at play. Okay. Jeez. So where do I go from here, I thought?
That’s when I honed in on ‘modern’. Started researching why time and time again people kept saying they preferred the vintage stuff to modern, and that to get the same sound that even entry level vintage pieces provided often required extremely high end modern equipment. That things were built better because of the mass proliferation and competition of the turntable market in decades past.
From here I started digging into vintage Technics, found them to be reputable, reliable, and have longevity — and discovered linear tracking along the way.
After doing as much of a pre-deep dive as I could for my first turntable I ultimately decided on going the vintage automatic, linear tracking, direct drive route! Vintage build quality with new user simplicity — plus my wife would be comfortable with it as well.
I picked up a Technics SL-Q5 for $95 Canadian (around $65 USD)— vintage turntables are a little harder to find in Canada due to a smaller population and thus smaller collectors circle. It’s a bit grimy but I love the 80s styling abd it (mostly) seems to function properly, though I’m here to work through some potential issues.
And now I’m here to solicit a little guidance from people who know this technology far better than I!
I gotta’ say, audiophiles are both incredibly helpful with their deep knowledge of this world — and simultaneously caused me untold headaches as I tried to pick up equipment! Haha
It was an odyssey and forgive me if any of this is completely incorrect, these were just what I was seeing along the way:
I started out wanting an all-in-one player, thinking there would be quality options and otherwise… only to find out that pretty much anything with a built-in speaker was going to cause playback issues. Learned something right off the bat!
I next switched gears to a ‘set’, a turntable with separate speakers included, only to be scared off by people saying that the quality of all of these components would usually be more than lacklustre.
Ooookay, moving on, I switched to trying to look for a decent budget manual turntable — while trying to keep the budget not far off from my original all-in-one estimates — only to find that it was recommended by many posters, resources, etc for newbies to stick to fully automatic turntables until they get their sea legs.
So I narrowed it down to the usual suspects of Audio-Technica and Sony, and eventually even hit buy on the entry-level automatic Sony option. But something felt off, couldn’t say what, so I cancelled the order (I very rarely get buyers remorse so I took it as a sign).
Started doing a bit more digging and was finding a lot of ‘You’ll want to upgrade in months if you go with either of the above. The sound is going to be noticeably inferior even to a layman’ — and also that modern automatics tend to be more prone to failure because there’s more mechanics at play. Okay. Jeez. So where do I go from here, I thought?
That’s when I honed in on ‘modern’. Started researching why time and time again people kept saying they preferred the vintage stuff to modern, and that to get the same sound that even entry level vintage pieces provided often required extremely high end modern equipment. That things were built better because of the mass proliferation and competition of the turntable market in decades past.
From here I started digging into vintage Technics, found them to be reputable, reliable, and have longevity — and discovered linear tracking along the way.
After doing as much of a pre-deep dive as I could for my first turntable I ultimately decided on going the vintage automatic, linear tracking, direct drive route! Vintage build quality with new user simplicity — plus my wife would be comfortable with it as well.
I picked up a Technics SL-Q5 for $95 Canadian (around $65 USD)— vintage turntables are a little harder to find in Canada due to a smaller population and thus smaller collectors circle. It’s a bit grimy but I love the 80s styling abd it (mostly) seems to function properly, though I’m here to work through some potential issues.
And now I’m here to solicit a little guidance from people who know this technology far better than I!
Welcome @LogansRun (great movie BTW). Never had any kind of auto turntable, so no help unfortunately.
jeff
jeff
Welcome. I see this thread could be useful for your TT. After a looksie there, I suggest you start a thread in the Analogue Source forum regarding questions/issues with your Technics SL-Q5. I have a few Technics linear trackers as well, but am not a pro at servicing them.