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Audiophile Turntables

19:23 / 14.06.08

I did a google search but didn't turn up anything relevant. Does anybody here have experience with audiophile stereo equipment, specifically turntables? I am looking at buying an entry-level unit to replace the extremely cheap player I have right now. My record collection is small, 99% classical music, and doesn't at the moment have many expensive records. Most of my records are $3 or under, and while many are fine, there are also quite a few that are pretty thrashed.

On my records there is a wide range within single tracks -- from big, full orchestral stuff to some very soft playing.

I went into a local shop today and looked at the Rega P1 and Music Hall MMF 2.2. The shop dude suggested the Music Hall (same price for both, $400) based on my listening habits. There's a player by Pro-ject whose model I don't recall that I have also seen recommended, but I don't know how it compares to these others in price and sound quality (not quality as in excellence, but quality as in tone, color, etc.).

Any recommendations?

20:23 / 14.06.08

Don't know much about the subject but when I bought my project debut mkII, I think, I was hugely impressed by the sound and it outperformed other turntables at twice the price I listened to.

It's served me well over the past few years but has been incapacitated for the past few months due to a small elastic band snapping during a house move and me being too lazy to cart it round to the shop.

From what I recall the Project turntables were touted as some of the best entry level turntables by most of the hi-fi magazines at the time. I'm not up to date with current situation though.

I love the way it is so simply put together and everything is done very manually, like removing the plate and adjusting the band to alter the speed.

Typing this has just reminded me how much I miss my now idle record collection.

20:27 / 14.06.08

Oh and don't forget about getting something that fits in with your current set up. It can be great in a shop setup but horribly unsuited to your personal home setup.

It's worth checking if your amp has a built in preamp or if you will need to invest in a separate one.

22:41 / 14.06.08

I have an old but serviceable amp and preamp from APT/Holman, with a satisfactory phono stage. I also have speakers on which I spent about $30 total, but one thing at a time.

03:32 / 15.06.08

I don't really want to give advice of a concrete nature (not without a play with your stuff), but I'd definitely suggest that you try several different carriage and needle sets. They can make a big difference, and it's well worth investing a decent fraction of your cash is those two items.

Personally I like Shures, but that's because I'd be using them to mix. Your needs are different, so don't take that s a recommendation. They do sound great, but I've heard better.

07:10 / 15.06.08

Well, impulse took over. I found this for $260 (used Music Hall MMF 5, Goldring cartridge) and snapped it up. Already loving the double plinth! Shortest thread ever, unless somebody wants to chime in with speaker recs. Sorry about that!

07:25 / 15.06.08

To appease my curiosity, is audiophile a particular kind of equipment, or is it just equipment for people-wot-love-music, or people-wot-really-care-about-sound-quality? I = ignorant.

10:12 / 15.06.08

Yeah, impulse taking over sounds good.

One day we may have a banning thread where impulse takes over and 20 odd pages of mulling over are missed.

As far as I'm aware an audiophile is people-wot-love-hi-fi-equipment-as-much-as-music. Shopping for a seperates hi-fi system with a copy of a hi-fi magazine would be enough to qualify most people in my book.

13:50 / 15.06.08

I think audiophile is commonly used to describe a person who wants the best equipment possible and is willing to spend gobs of cash and tweak his (usually) setup endlessly. Audiophile stereo equipment is generally high quality in terms of both materials and engineering. My personal experience has been that audiophiles are essentially gear nerds, and perfect every aspect of the sound they hear except the most obvious one -- the music. Audiophile recordings (made specifically for testing your stereo) are made very carefully with a lot of attention to producing sound that will show off the system, but to me at least, they sound like Thomas Kinkade paintings: calculated and soulless.

14:30 / 15.06.08

I have a friend who uses slipknot to showcase a setup. He doesn't like the band, but he reckons they have one of the fullest sounds.

14:39 / 15.06.08

Ah, thank'ee. I tend towards the opposite end - obsession with music but more or less indifference to the equipment unless I can tell it really makes a difference.

15:31 / 15.06.08

Well -- it does make a difference. I have a record player, cd player, and auxiliary jack for my iPod all running through the same preamp. The record player sounds the most like music, and the least like a recording of music. There's an element of personal preference, but unless you actually have a preference for all your music to have a tinny, flat quality no matter whether you're playing Chopin or Einsturzende Neubaten, then yeah, a nice stereo is going to sound better, and the source matters too. Frankly, even EN's music, which may actually be played on big sheets of tin, still sounds better without the stereo adding tinniness.

07:20 / 16.06.08

I'm sure you're right. I think I'm either looking primarily for something other than pure sound quality in my music or I'm a bit stupid - I've been listening to music nearly entirely on my computer for ages and have only just changed the speakers on it from the crappy cheap two-speaker setup.

19:30 / 16.06.08

Enh, if the setup you've got isn't bothering you, there's no reason to spend a lot on an expensive and time-consuming hobby. Just because there's a difference doesn't mean you can't enjoy what you have. I love listening to music while driving with the windows down -- a terrible environment for sound quality.