Turntable Upgrade question..
I don’t personally think moving into the $500-600 range is going to increase your enjoyment much. Your next step is going to take 3 to 4x that to make any significant sound quality impact, minimum. Much of that in improvement will be in the table and arm choice, not so much the cart or phono stage choices. IMO. If that is what your budget is, you might consider a cart upgrade until you can invest much more. |
I agree with wait till you can afford a better table. I recently had a Project 1Xpression and was looking to invest $1500 to upgrade. I tried a Rega P6 with exact cartridge which is about $1500 More than my setup. It was maybe a 5-10% improvement. I went to a VPI Prime Scout and the change is incredible. This ended up being around $3000 but the sound quality is maybe 2-3 times better than what I had. hope my 2 cents helps |
There's nothing I'd recommend for a few hundred dollars. Instead do like others recommend, take your time and plan for bigger moves. Baby steps, you will notice- and be ready for another baby step next week. Great strides, you will find the right table yields magnificent performance you could go with happily for years and years. Totally worth it. Keep in mind its not just the table. Its the table, arm, cartridge, and phono stage. Any one of these alone can elevate your music like you won't believe. Buy the right arm and it will serve you well through years as you upgrade phono stages. Or the right phono stage as you upgrade table, etc. My analog front end was built this way, with a table I'm still impressed with some 20 years later. Not many things in audio you can say that about. With turntables its rather common. So stop and think and take your time. Meantime pick up some Nobsound springs, fO.q tape, and Walker Enzyme. Any one of these will be at least as big an improvement as you're likely to get from just a $600 table, and for a fraction of the cost. Hence the recommendations. |
In that budget range I'd go for the Thorens td 203 with tp 82 unipivot tonearm. Rutherford's is practically giving it away. Yes, it comes with a thorens tas 257 mm cartridge, but the arm could easily handle, with aplomb, a $1K cartridge easily. Read the reviews for it, it's a great table that plays way above its price. I'd take that over any of the Rega stuff. The arm is also infinitely adjustable. Other than that, save as some have said. |
I suggest you ’think long’ about features, flexibility, future uses now, as well as quality. How to narrow the choices? I decided Direct Drive, Quartz Locked for the Spinner as a categorical limitation. I like wood, love keeping vintage stuff going, and the lower cost of used, all reducing choices before looking in earnest. I was happy for years with a TT with single arm, then, with help here, I went to a large plinth with two tonearms, similar to this one sold here https://www.audiogon.com/listings/lisa0d8i-jvc-victor-tt-81-dd-turntable-cl-p2-dual-arm-base-ua7082-... One arm ready for Stereo, other ready for Mono, or One MC, one MM. Actually, I will probably squeeze a 3rd arm on the left side, thus have Mono/MM/MC. In my case I also decided to try a longer arm for my main cartridge. Actually, that’s what started my new setup, it can be seen in the last photo in this LP listing on eBay https://www.ebay.com/itm/George-Harrison/133534402519 these things are big, so considering size and placement of a future TT now might help with other decisions. size of plinth is in this listing https://www.hi-fi.ru/auction/detail/1155853?refsource=hifishark |
Just to check it out, I scored a good used RP3/elys2/b330 combo in glossy white, thinking it might be good for my upstairs family system. (upstairs family meaning the family room where my family and I attend to hang out a lot, not that I have an upstairs family as opposed to a downstairs family). What I hadnt anticipated was the output of the Elys2: 7.2mV! Wow! My Benz micro ace is 2.0 and my Hana SH is 2.5. Plus my LFD phono preamp is solder bridged to its MC gain of 53 db. Needless to say on the downstairs system that was a bit of an overkill. however, with my Schitt Mani adjustable gain phono stage upstairs, the sound was tamed enough. My main system turntable is a VPI HW-19 Mark 4 with a Jelco 750 EB and the Hana SH. A significantly higher investment than the Rega, but the latter performed superbly all things considered. |
