Need Some Turntable Advice

[Malcy]

I've been planning on getting a turntable for a few months and didn't have a clue what to get. I made the error of thinking that no matter what the player the music would sound fine once plugged into my speakers.

I bought a player with Bluetooth, Vinyl to USB recording and a chargeable battery which was reduced from £80 to £50 thinking the extras were worth it. Wrong.

Switch the thing on and it has an Asian woman announcing which mode you are on and some of it is barely understandable, there's no chargeable battery, it's incredibly flimsy and once I played a record through the speakers I was really disappointed in the sound.

Waiting on a box of records being delivered but doubt they will sound any better. Back to looking at better turntables and have seen a lot of great reviews for Audio-Technica products.

Any one ever used any of their products? Can anyone recommend me any decent make? Looking around £100-£150 range.

[daf]

Might be just a bit over your budget at £207, but this is the one I bought a couple of years ago :  Audio-Technica AT-LP120 - I love it!

Essentially, it's a Technics SL-1200 knockoff, but you can also play 78s on it (you'll need a separate stylus for that!) - here's a youtube review

[Malcy]

Might be just a bit over your budget at £207, but this is the one I bought a couple of years ago :  Audio-Technica AT-LP120 - I love it!

Essentially, it's a Technics SL-1200 knockoff, but you can also play 78s on it (you'll need a separate stylus for that!) - here's a youtube review

Thanks. I think i saw that one elsewhere for a good bit cheaper. It was Amazon i got the last one on and hopefully where ill get another as i have Amazon credit and my refund might end up as credit as well.

It seems that brand is the way to go then. I did look at stuff on ebay as well but not properly. Would rather get new in the hope it will last a bit longer.

[QDRPHNC]

A bit lower on the scale, the Audio Technica LP-60 is probably considered the best turntable for its price.

[holyzombiejesus]

A bit lower on the scale, the Audio Technica LP-60 is probably considered the best turntable for its price.

Really? It looks awful. Then again, 'for it's price' when it's a hundred quid isn't saying much. I'm after one for between 2/300 quid and ideally want automatic speed change. Asked on here before and people (helpfully) pointed me in the direction of 2nd hand ones but ideally would prefer new. Have a Pro-ject Audio one upstairs but feel it might be a bit fiddly for where the toddler roams.

[holyzombiejesus]

Might be just a bit over your budget at £207, but this is the one I bought a couple of years ago :  Audio-Technica AT-LP120 - I love it!

Essentially, it's a Technics SL-1200 knockoff, but you can also play 78s on it (you'll need a separate stylus for that!) - here's a youtube review

Oooh. Do you recommend? Looks a lot sturdier than my other one. I have no interest in the USB thingy, would I be wiser to spend my money on one without or would the saving of not havuing the USB thingy be negligible?

[Malcy]

Oooh. Do you recommend? Looks a lot sturdier than my other one. I have no interest in the USB thingy, would I be wiser to spend my money on one without or would the saving of not havuing the USB thingy be negligible?

Reviews I saw for Audio-Technica stuff always mentioned how surprisingly good they were for the reasonable price. The option to record to digital is a nice bonus although not essential.

I just found an old Ltd edition Ian Brown vinyl and played it through the speakers. Sounded shite as well. All I want is a player that will sound good when connected to the speakers.

Thinking that might be more down to the stylus than anything else. I used to be so up on music tech. Clueless now there's so much on the market.

[daf]

Oooh. Do you recommend? Looks a lot sturdier than my other one.

It's a really heavy bugger, solid as a rock!

I have no interest in the USB thingy, would I be wiser to spend my money on one without or would the saving of not havuing the USB thingy be negligible?

I don't think the cheaper or more expensive versions have it - so it's probably not affecting the price too much.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Can't comment on the decks but I've got an Audio Technica cartridge on mine and it's good enough.

I've also got a sure v15 Mk III but I'm saving that for the lenco I'm rebuilding.

I bought an 80's Revolver Rebel to nick the (jelco) arm off for that, but its a good deck in itself, but a quick squint at ebay shows they seem to have doubled in price.

[holyzombiejesus]

It's a really heavy bugger, solid as a rock!

If I PM you, please could you do a couple of measurements for me?

EDIT: Genuinely, not in some Finbarr Saunders fnarr fnarr way.

[Marner and Me]

I have been told don't buy anything with modcons on it like USB blue tooth. Rega Planer 3s look stylish and for playing vinyl are very good for their age. Other audiophiles have stated for ease you can get powered speakers. However for a better sound, you want an amp and passive speakers, so the amp powers the speaker.

I have just brought a dj set up two 1210s a Vestex mixer and powered speaker to start my career as a sadact bedroom dj.

[Sebastian Cobb]

12010's s are actually a decent enough deck with a good stylus. Their original incarnation was as an audiphile deck, came without a fitted tonearm and was good enough to be sold with SME arms a lot of the time. Its high torque and good dampening ability is what got it into radio stations and discos and then by hiphop dj's prompting dj-friendly changes like a linear pitch control. They stayed that way until 2002 when they added digital pitch controls in revisions.

I think round 2016 after stopping making them they revamped them and they're all different now though. They also shifted production to Malaysia.

Still depressing to see a hipster with one and some definitely maybe represses though!

[Marner and Me]

Hipster use fucking Crosleys.

[NoSleep]

The main thing to do if you get a cheap modern deck is to upgrade the cartridge, which is the cheapest way to improve the sound.

I have been told don't buy anything with modcons on it like USB blue tooth. Rega Planer 3s look stylish and for playing vinyl are very good for their age. Other audiophiles have stated for ease you can get powered speakers. However for a better sound, you want an amp and passive speakers, so the amp powers the speaker.

This is the way to go. I've also got a Rega Planar and I plug that into an old Teac phono amp so I can stick it anywhere else I want. I mainly use it plugged into my computer's audio interface (RME Fireface 400) to do 96kHz/24-bit rips which I then declick by hand (no noise reduction/declicker plugins). Then I carefully put the record away and never play it again.

[Marner and Me]

You lost me after Amp and I regained track of post at Then.

[daf]

If I PM you, please could you do a couple of measurements for me?

EDIT: Genuinely, not in some Finbarr Saunders fnarr fnarr way.

Sure, no problem.

[QDRPHNC]

Hipster use fucking Crosleys.

I have a Crosley and it's completely fine for my purposes.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I think the arguments that audiophiles misunderstand crossley owner's needs and overblow the damage they do are valid. I also think it's quite valid to suggest 90 quid is a bit of an ask given you can get 2nd hand mediocre mass produced turntables that offer the same convenience for sweetie money.

[QDRPHNC]

All very true. I needed something with the built in speakers, so picking up a Crosley rather than scouring eBay or whatever made sense. But yeah, it's completely fine.

[holyzombiejesus]

What do people mean when they talk about upgrading the cartridge. I've just realised to my mild horror that I've had the same stylus on my Pro-ject turntable since I bought it 4 1/2 years ago. It's not had a lot of use - maybe 10 to 15 hours a week - but still, I should get a new one. Is this anything to do with the cartridge or is the cartridge the thing that the needle clips in to? The latter seems a bit fiddly to change? The current one has a red '2m' on it. Does  that mean it's good or rubbish?

[Egyptian Feast]

I was using the 2M cartridge that came with my Pro-Ject Debut Carbon for years, probably the same amount of time as you. I upgraded to the slightly more expensive 2M blue one last year and it does sound better. It's very easy to change over, so I wouldn't worry about that. It's just a case of popping out the old one and slotting in the new.

I was going to change my turntable when it started to sound a little duller, but decided to save cash & upgrade the cartridge instead and it was worth it, though the other issues that made me contemplate replacing it still remain: manually changing the speed is an arse and the tonearm increasingly wobbles around like it has DTs, so I have to steady it with my finger when lowering it.

[holyzombiejesus]

Ah, cheers.

Christ, just looked and it's £180! Probably keep the red one as I just play records relatively quietly in a weird shaped attic on not particularly brilliant Monitor Audio speakers and through a not particularly brilliant Marantz amp. Should buy a new needle though.

[Egyptian Feast]

Sorry, by cartridge I meant stylus. I get confused by all this shite. The cartridge is the thingy at the end of the tonearm that the stylus slots into. I wouldn't have the foggiest notion of how to replace that, but switching needles was easy.

[buzby]

What do people mean when they talk about upgrading the cartridge. I've just realised to my mild horror that I've had the same stylus on my Pro-ject turntable since I bought it 4 1/2 years ago. It's not had a lot of use - maybe 10 to 15 hours a week - but still, I should get a new one. Is this anything to do with the cartridge or is the cartridge the thing that the needle clips in to? The latter seems a bit fiddly to change? The current one has a red '2m' on it. Does  that mean it's good or rubbish?

The stylus clips into the cartridge. Cartridges do age, but not appreciably (which is vintage Shure V15s like Sebs still go for big money). Moving Magnet cartridges are also less suceptible to wear and aging than the more expensive Moving Coil ones too (in these the sub-hair thickness wires connecting the coils can eventually fatigue and break). It's the stylus that wears out and needs replacing. Ortofon say that their styli (for normal cartridges, at least - not DJ scratch cartridges) will last for around 1000 hours use with no degradation in reproduction, but at over 2000 hours you should be looking at replacement so from your figures you are about due.

The stylus on the Ortofon 2M range just clips in. The 2M Red cartridge (I'm assuming yours is a Red) stylus is compatible with the Blue and Silver styli from cartridges higher up the range too.

Changing a cartridge is a more complex affair, as it has to be aligned properly in three dimensions inside the headshell (assuming it's a standard 2-bolt fitting cartridge and headshell, and not something like an Ortofon Concorde that completely replaces the headshell) and setting the tracking force properly by adjusting the counterweight.

[holyzombiejesus]

Thanks Busby. So why the massive (£60+ hike in price between this



and this?

[Egyptian Feast]

You make way more sense than I do, buzby. Chancing my arm here, but do you know what I should do about my wobbly tonearm?

[buzby]

Thanks Busby. So why the massive (£60+ hike in price between this


and this?

It's mainly due to the quality of the diamond tip -  the Blue stylus has a "Nude Elliptical diamond which retrieves information from the groove with a higher accuracy" vs the Red's 'Tipped Elliptical diamond"

You make way more sense than I do, buzby. Chancing my arm here, but do you know what I should do about my wobbly tonearm?

I assume you mean the tonearm is wobbling on it's bearings as you lower it onto the platter? If so, that sounds like an issue in the gimbal bearings (see this thread - it mentions the arm moving laterally as it lowers, and in this case this case it was due to the bearings being overtightened). the tool that is mentioned for adjusting them is called the Pro-Ject Adjust-It and it costs about £25

Can you feel any play or binding in the bearings as you move the arm?

[magval]

I have a Pro-Ject Debut Carbon as well - Egyptian Feast, did you ever have any trouble with a terrible hum that's audible between songs and which tends to increase if you hover your fingers near the exposed wires that connect the head of the tonearm to the main shaft of it?

Drives me a wee bit mental. I wouldn't mind if it was a permanent consistent hum, but the fact that it worsens and can be kept in check with really imprecise fiddling with the phono lead at the back that drives the part of me that wants to understand things barmy.

[Endicott]

Sounds like you have an earthing problem. Or some dodgy wires, or both. There is often a separate earth wire coming out the back of a turntable, and this is supposed to connect to an earth somewhere - on the back of your amp usually. Also check those wires you mention are not loose, but careful they don't break when you fiddle with them.

[buzby]

I have a Pro-Ject Debut Carbon as well - Egyptian Feast, did you ever have any trouble with a terrible hum that's audible between songs and which tends to increase if you hover your fingers near the exposed wires that connect the head of the tonearm to the main shaft of it?

Drives me a wee bit mental. I wouldn't mind if it was a permanent consistent hum, but the fact that it worsens and can be kept in check with really imprecise fiddling with the phono lead at the back that drives the part of me that wants to understand things barmy.

That sounds like a grounding issue. Have you got the earth wire from the turntable connected to the grounding post on your amp/preamp? The Pro-Ject turntables have an external double insulated power supply I think, so there should be no earth on the turntable other than what is being supplied via the ground lead that connects to the preamp's grounding post. That also means that the amp/preamp needs to be earthed to the mains socket too.

My old Quad 33/303 setup does this by having the 3- core mains lead come into the preamp (33), and then it goes out again to the power amp (303) as a 2-core live/neutral, and the earth is carried on the shield of the 5-pin DIN audio cable. This meant that the preamp is the centre of a 'star' earthing network that was meant to stop any ground loops occuring. If I don't attach the earth lead from the tonearm cable to the grounding post on the 33 however, I then start picking up 50hz hum, as the signal ground for the audio path is separate from the earth plane which is now not connected, and so is no longer acting as a shield.

Modern preamps don't tend to work like this, however, and a lot of them also have double-insulated external power supplies which means they have no earth connection (ie. a 'wall wart' type with a plastic earth pin). You can check for earth continuity with  a multimeter or continuity tester by unplugging the power supply/mains plug from the wall and seeing if you have continuity from the grounding post on the back of the case and the earth pin of the plug. If there's no continuity, you can make an earth connection by taking a standard 3-pin plug, removing the live and neutral pins and running a wire from the earth pin to the grounding post (see this video). Ideally this has to be plugged into the same socket/power strip as th epre and power amps.