Contact Brian Berdan (son of analog master Brooks Berdan, and an expert himself) at his new shop in Pasadena California, Audio Elements. He knows all about vinyl and shellac formats and the equipment required to play them.
Going old school
It all started with the soundtrack of Woody Allen's Magic in the Moonlight. The music/songs strongly appealed to me. It reminded me of the sound on a hand-cranked gramophone in my original home that is sadly being used as kind of a coffee/tea stand. I started looking up the artists and then tried to get the albums. My first stumbling block was this new (old) thing I am unaccustomed to - 78 rpm. I am fairly new in my re-entry into vinyl and am getting deeper every day. Now, I feel like venturing into 78 rpm. I found out that you cannot just get a player with 3 (or variable) speed settings as you require specialized cartridges. I saw a couple of new models that handle this speed - one was a Rega - but unsure of the cartridge aspect. I became aware of vintage models such as a Garrard but don't know if that is a good choice given their age (apart from 501s). Do you have experience with these setups and what do I need to do to build such a setup?