best 'affordable' turntable with moving coil cart

Your phono stage doesn't require a moving coil cartridge; it's just been engineered to do low output moving coils particularly well. Read the specs again; it can accept *any* cartridge with output from 0.2mV to 4.0mV.

0.2mV to about 2.5 mV covers the output range of most moving coil cartridges. But notice that your Chenin accepts all the way up to a 4.0mV output. This is squarely in moving magnet and moving iron territory.

Why you'd want to pair a $500 turntable with a $2900 tubed phono stage I can't imagine, but whatever. Moving magnet and Grado moving iron cartridges make the most sense at that price range and your phono stage will have no problem with them whatsoever.

In the MMF 5.1 price range you could also consider a Rega P2, Technics SL1200, SOTA Moonbeam, or Denon DP-500M. You can use any cartridge you want, regardless of underlying design as long as its output is between 0.2mV and 4.0mV, which is 99% of them.

Good entry level carts would include the Ortofon 2M Red ($99) or Blue ($199), Grado Prestige Red ($140) or above, Denon DL-110 ($139) or 160 ($179), or the Audio Technica AT150MLX ($299-399). If you get into the low output moving coil realm, check out the Audio Technica OC-9 ($339) or Denon 301 II ($329).

In addition to what T-bone said, I think you should take a look at a Denon DP-500M turntable. It lists at $699 most places, but if you Google for online vendors, one or two will pop up in the $545 range. The Denon should sound better out-of-the-box than the Technics, as it's a much more recent release (2005 vs. 1981), is targeted at the home market, and has significant vibration control built into the physical design. I suspect the tonearm has a bit higher effective mass as well, because Denon recommends several of their low-to-mid compliance MC cartridges for it--the DL-110/160, DL-103, DL-301, etc.

There aren't as many aftermarket tweaks available for the Denon as the Technics, but then, maybe it doesn't need them. There's a review on A-gon, and one of the respondents claims to have retro-fitted an SME tonearm, so I guess there's room to grow.

And you can always improve a sub-$1500 turntable's sound by putting it on an isolation platform and getting a clamp or weight for it. The Denon is also open to aftermarket headshells, which change the tonearm's effective mass and resonance rigidity characteristics.

So for critical listening, the digital and for just enjoying my record collection without being critical use analog.

With no intention of being insulting, I think most people on this forum would feel that--once you've given the LPs a chance again--you've got that backwards.

LP has re-emerged as the high-resolution medium of choice, and is part of the reason DVD-A and SACD have withered on the vine.

I still don't understand how you could be so cautious about the turntable expense when you have a $2900 hand-made phono stage. Did you inherit it?

04-13-09: Richmon
...So, with fiscal caution I'm going in, the Denon turntables you recomended look particulary interesting for my maiden voyage.

Before you jump on the Denon, I suggest you read this thread.
The responses in that thread laid to rest any interest or speculation I had in the Denon. I'll stand by my recommendation for a Technics SL1210 M5G with aftermarket feet, better mat, and fluid damper.

04-13-09: Richmon
I really need to spend alot more time with a turntable, cause the difference between that 50K Lp system and my humble rig was not noteworthy. Maybe a longer audition in my home will reveal this proported superiority of analog over digital.

You may not hear significant differences in "critical listener" mode. I find that the biggest differences between CD and LP are in how they make me *feel*, not in the identifiable sonic differences in A/B comparisons.

The differences in digital and analog is best demonstrated by the shift in listening habits since the onset of digital in the late '80s. Popularity of the great storytelling vocalists has been replaced by the mimicry of Jessica Simpson and the vocal gymnastics of Mariah Carey and the like. Groups with a musical message who could write songs and play instruments have largely been replaced by pop-synth, sampled beats, rap, and hip-hop. Classical music, which suffers worst with what red book does to the sound of bowed strings, dropped from a respectable 5% to a near unmeasurable market share.

People gravitate to what sounds good on the medium at hand. By that standard, red book and below doesn't convey subtlety well, and LPs--the era of Sinatra, Bennett, the Beatles, Heifetz, Rubinstein, and Horowitz--did it particularly well. It's boom & sizzle vs. the music that resides between the bits.

Really glad to read that it worked out for you. Your experience has some similarities to mine. In 2007 I had gotten to the point where I was going to go all-in for HD digital or drop it for vinyl. At the time I didn't have a turntable, but I had an LP and SACD of the same direct-to-disk recording of the Buddy Rich Big Band. I'm very familiar with Buddy's sound as I'd seen him live five times and had several recordings of his band. 

I took the SACD and LP to my local high end store, and I was able to play both disks through an all-Linn system I'd never be able to afford, sourced from a 5-figure Linn SACD machine and a Sondek turntable. Of course, the SACD sounded very good, dynamic, detailed, low noise, etc. But when I switched over to the LP, the SACD sounded bleached and threadbare by comparison. It wasn's subtle, and the effect was immediate and very apparent. 

Within days, after listening exclusively to digital for 20 years, I bought my first turntable in 31 years. I started with a couple of good budget cartridges--Ortofon OM20 and Shure M97xE. I started hitting thrift shops, used record stores, and their bargain boxes. It became easy and cheap to acquire entire discographies of Steely Dan, The Police, and many more. Many of my favorites are 99-cent specials.

For six straight months I didn't ever listen to one digital file, whether CD, SACD, DVD-A, or HD download. To this day, nearly 10 years later, I listen to vinyl exclusively at home. 

Since adding the turntable, the 2-channel living room system it sources has grown from a modest nearfield system to handwired PTP all-tube line and phono stages, a 200 wpc mosfet amp powering a pair of Magnepan 1.7s augmented by two subwoofers. My cartridges include an Audio Technica AT150Sa (Shibata stylus), a Shelter 201, and an Audio Technica HOMC mono cartridge, each mounted to Jelco or Yamamoto headshells. I now have over 1500 LPs, most culled from thrift shops and used record stores. I also have several audiophile reissues that knock my socks off.

I get no end of pleasure from it, and spinning two or more records invariably puts a smile on my face for the rest of the day. A 4-hour listening session has the same effect for the rest of the week.

Paraneer wrote:

Glad to hear you have embraced vinyl again. .... Not necessarily because it sounds better but because it sounds different. And I make a much more emotional connection to the music that's gets the toe's tapping that digital seldom would.

The way I put it is, "I'm not going to get into an argument about which sounds better, but I know that analog *feels* better. As with your "emotional connection," spinning vinyl puts a smile on my face and a bounce in my step. And that emotional connection and lifting of spirits--isn't that a prime function of music?I'll spin vinyl for as long as I have the spare time. With digital, it's often a relief when I'm done and turn it off.