I have a Hanna SL. It is awesome for the price. Good choice. I also have a Thorens TD165 I've own from new MANY years. Thorens is a very good turntable but I also own a Feickert Volare turntable and have sampled other modern turntables. I found the modern turntables outperformed my TD165 pretty handily. But, my Thorens hasn't been professionally upgraded either. I've done many things to keep it in great shape to the point that I'm not sure how much additional work would help it to start with. I also have a Whest two.2 phono pre. That made a significant difference in the system with any TT/Cart combination. Don't discount the importance of the Pre. I also have a very well performing digital path. I enjoy my TT very much, but you have better/worse digital executions and analog executions. But rarely does the analog path sound better than digital path to me. My wife, who also grew up with records now simply refuses to listen to them vs my digital path. She has certifiable bat ears. Her hearing tests are off the charts. So I trust her analysis too. But ALWAYS go with what keeps you in the room listening to the music. That's all that counts!
Which turntable should I choose?
Seeking assistance from the TT gurus here.
So far my experience with TT's has not been especially gratifying. A local dealer convinced me that the cartridge is really the only thing that mattered. So he sold me a TEAC TN-400s paired with a Ortofon 2M Black cart. The TEAC had a rather annoying hum no matter what phono-pre I used, except for the one built into the table. The cart showed every wart and flaw on the record, in other words it was not very forgiving, despite me cleaning my records well with an Oki-Nokki.
I sold both the table and cart and want to try again from scratch.
I want to keep the table under $2k. I've come across two tables in my research that interest me.
- Technics SL1210GR from HiFi Heaven. I'm not really sure what cart to get but I'm leaning toward the Hana SL Low Output Shibata. https://hifiheaven.net/shop/Technics-SL-1210GR-Grand-Class-Direct-Drive-Turntable-System
- A restored Thorens table from Vinyl Nirvana. https://vinylnirvana.com/vintage-turntables-for-sale
My current phono-pre is a Consonance PM6.
Questions:
- Will either of these table options provide sound quality anywhere approaching my digital setup (Bluesound Node 2/ Mytek Libery DAC)?
- Are there better options in this price range that I should consider?
Thanks for any and all replies.
Joe
So far my experience with TT's has not been especially gratifying. A local dealer convinced me that the cartridge is really the only thing that mattered. So he sold me a TEAC TN-400s paired with a Ortofon 2M Black cart. The TEAC had a rather annoying hum no matter what phono-pre I used, except for the one built into the table. The cart showed every wart and flaw on the record, in other words it was not very forgiving, despite me cleaning my records well with an Oki-Nokki.
I sold both the table and cart and want to try again from scratch.
I want to keep the table under $2k. I've come across two tables in my research that interest me.
- Technics SL1210GR from HiFi Heaven. I'm not really sure what cart to get but I'm leaning toward the Hana SL Low Output Shibata. https://hifiheaven.net/shop/Technics-SL-1210GR-Grand-Class-Direct-Drive-Turntable-System
- A restored Thorens table from Vinyl Nirvana. https://vinylnirvana.com/vintage-turntables-for-sale
My current phono-pre is a Consonance PM6.
Questions:
- Will either of these table options provide sound quality anywhere approaching my digital setup (Bluesound Node 2/ Mytek Libery DAC)?
- Are there better options in this price range that I should consider?
Thanks for any and all replies.
Joe