Turntables

hey guyses...i'm looking around sort of stuck between the pro-ject one that 's $300, the Rega P1 that's around that price, and a music hall one (MM something) that's around 350?

anyone have any experience w/these?

No experience with the other two but I love my Debut III.

cool yeah it's stupid but i like all the colors they come in! but i don't want that to be the decision point cuz i'd feel all lame and shit. but they looks sweet in bright red and stuff...

i have a rega planar3, and love it. no frills, just solid quality. so i'm partial to that one.

The Projects are great - I have an old (eight years or so) one, and recently got a new model to install at work, which was beautiful.

Also I have no idea how to find the thread we discussed budget hi-fi on about a year ago, but if Jonesy opens this thread, I've bought two pairs of the Q Acoustics 1010s for work and really, really liked them.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/njsouthall/officehifi004.jpg

Debut gets consistently good reviews at that price. The MMF 5 looks good as well but is a couple hundred $ more.

the rega is a great turntable. as long as you dont need to switch between 33/45 too much.

Hello! Helped the Pinefox audition stuff last Xmas and he ended up buying the Q-Acoustics 1020s. Debut III too, cos it's a no-brainer at that price. Good internal phono stage and push-button 33/45 for an extra £90 (Tim H went for that one, with my dubious guidance, a few months later; Pinefox went for the NAD phono stage, nicely complementing his other NAD stuff).

My no-nonsense hands-on audio advice is available to other London ex-ILXORs for a packet of Chewits and a pint of mild.

I heart my MMF 5 for what that's worth. Yeah, it's more like $600, but it's awesome.

One thing that's kind of a drag is that it's totally manual - the tonearm won't return after the record is over, and you have to manually switch it to 45 by moving the belt to a lower track. I assume this is true of the MMF 3 as well.

So, you might want to look into those aspects of whatever you are looking at.

well, i tell myself it's much more manly to switch speeds by moving the belt.

turntables are hard enough when you're drunk, i don't think i could handle adjusting a belt drive

has anyone tested a rega next to a debut III soundwise?

this audiophile review really talked up the rega but maybe there's no difference. the auto-switching between 33/45 sounds like a good feature to have....most of the "good" turntables i'm seeing seem to be pretty bare bones in terms of functionality, i guess that must mess up the sound quality or something.

those fancy colored ones look real cool on the projects for sure too, the rega is pretty plain, but maybe that's good.

i have a rega planar3, and love it. no frills, just solid quality. so i'm partial to that one.

-- nerve_pylon, Tuesday, July 31, 2007 8:50 PM

^

If your ever going to buy used turntables off ebay don't make the same mistake I did, which was that the dude didn't really take much care into shipping and hence they got a bit roughed up and now are unable to rotate at a consistent rate (they probably didn't work properly to begin with). Of course I should have been suspicious from the get go since the guy selling them was named Elvis Santana.

the bare bones ones do indeed make up for it with really good sound quality...

if you are going to buy off the internet. get a place nearby and go pick it up.

I did that with my rega as shipping it will wreck it.

This is a pretty cookin' set up

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v321/AbXy6001/SOMA.jpg

I think I might try building my own flight cases for these (since if I'm succesful, I'll save something ridiculous like $400).

Anyone tried this?

not sure what to get now that technics go for > $1k. no way i'm paying that much.

http://www.needledoctor.com/Rega-RP1-Turntable?sc=7&category=23669

you can find Technics used for way under that. i see people selling 2 for $500 pretty often. they are durable and last a lifetime. you'd be on the hook for carts/needles but you can def. get a 1200 for well under $500 used.

yeah, i was just looking at the regas. i need a dj turntable though. i already have a numark ttx, i'll probably just get another one.

xp where? nada on my craigslist local for the past few months

i'm in seattle, see them posted on our techno mailing list pretty regularly. craigslist is good but if your area has a community of dj's, infiltrate and ask/wait for them to turn up.

ok i guess seeing 2 for $500 is within the realm of possibility, but is it really worth hunting around for a month + paying a couple hundred extra for a technics, idk. like i'm pretty happy with the ttx...

xp the "community" here is tiny and somehow no one in it is tight with anyone else

thanks for the tips. i'll always keep an eye out for something better but i'm tired of waiting, just going to get another numark tbr.

ah ok yeah rega's are FAR from a dj turntable as you can get haha

needle doctor has this on the front page, looks like a DJ turntable, audio technica + cart deal

http://www.needledoctor.com/Audio-Technica-LP240-USB-and-AT-120E-Combo

I love turntables, always have. I remember being totally entranced by my mom's old Technics 2000 when I was a baby, watching that stroboscope with all the moving and still lights as the record turned, wondering how a little pinpoint with a tube attached to it could make that big of a sound (my mom had these ENORMOUS '70s style floor-standing speakers that literally served as furniture). I still think they're just so lovely as objects, whether they're spartan and clean or super-busy looking, classic in their build or futuristic and ridiculous. I just bought my girlfriend a Pro-Ject Debut III in that rad looking almost Moroccan blue, and it was a thrill to set it up. I've got a Pro-Ject X-Pression III at home, and it's the shit--translucent white acrylic platter (no slipmat!), carbon-fiber tonearm, piano-black finish (the only splash of color being the red on my Ortofon cartridge). I enjoy the over-the-top manual-ness of it, lifting the platter and changing the belt position to switch between 33 and 45 (which I do more often than I probably should with this table, given how much electronic stuff on 12" I have). I fear that one day if I ever have a decent amount of money that my latent horrible audiophile tendencies will start to emerge more and more...

I wonder if this is too good to be true (I'm being semi-literal, I don't know how to value turntables in the UK).

If it is then it's very convenient, because I brought a pair of cartridges with me (having just moved, leaving my decks at home).

Then again, does buying a pair of decks while in another city for a 1 year masters program make sense. I mean, I have no idea if I'll be here after that (though I'd like to be). On the other hand I've been here 6 days and have already bought 7 records.

Oh dilemmas....

Oh, right. "This" = http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/technic-turntables-only-no-catridge/88197148

i think you get quite good deals on decks over here, but obviously if you can bring two copies of the same record to test the decks etc that'd help. technics seem to last forever tho.

Ehh, I'll probably get one (I don't even have a table big enough for two, nor a mixer, nor speakers, nor...)

in which case: Can anyone recommend a good turntable for listening, preferably one I can plug headphones into without getting an amp.

Thanks.