[Bemopti123]

Trying to get my analogue side going again and play some records through better equipment than my Technic turntable.  What are the best bets on the price points listed?

Requirements:

Universal compatibility with variety of cartridges...some Rega plays seem to be fond of their own brand...VTA issues.

Can be used, but need to rhythmic.

Not interested in reconstructing TT from defunct companies...that might be legendary in performance, but need much tender loving care in terms of mechanics.  

If used...please give specifics in arms, cartridges and table....comments on sound.  

Would appreciate some cartridge suggestions.

Finally, and most importantly, the sound that this set up produces need to make me not miss upgrading or wondering whether there is any better.

Paul

[zybar]

Paul,

That's a steep requirements list at a much higher price, let alone $1K and $2K price points.

It wasn't clear to me...do your price points include the cartrdige as well as arm/table?

Everything that is going to fit into the listed price points will be compromises and rigs that can be upgraded.  

Whether you can resist the temptation to upgrade is another story.

What is the rest of your system so that we might be able to get a better sense of what sounds good to you and allows you to resist the upgrade bug?

George

[Bemopti123]

More interested in table+arm, cartridge is a separate issue.

Some gear I might use it with:

Preamps:
Final Laboratories Music 5 preamp
and
First Sound Paramount Hot Rod MKII

Amplifiers:

Final Laboratories Music 6 amplifier
and
DNA 225 McCormack
and
Assemblage 300B Platinum
and
Scott Nixon Monoblocks, modded by Parts Connexion

Speakers:

Gershman Acoustics X1 and SW1 (exclusively with DNA 225)
Zhorn Garuda with Fostex 208 Sigma, older model with whizzer (to be used with everything else, except DNA 225)
FTA-2000, Bob Brines design (everything except DNA 225)


To redefine the search and my pre requisite, a table that gives me the punch and speed that I need and be fuzzy free.  

Some designs that come in mind:

up to 1K

P3 Rega
P25 Rega
VPI 19 series
even a non armed Nottingham (lowest in the roster)
Bluenote
Clearaudio (used)
Project turntables
Music Hall turntables

up to 2K

P7 Rega
Scout
Nottingham
Bluenote
Project
Music Hall.....


There are tons of choices and some people seem to be happy with some old rig, that has been modded and overhauled.

Ah, I forgot, there are couple of Moth turntables that seem to be under 1K range.  

Too many cakes to taste and eat, too little money and time.

[SET Man]

Hey! Bemopti,
   
   I see you are looking for a TT? Excellent! About time you spin those good old LPs.

   As you might already know. I have been using Rega Planar 2 since 1997. Now with Bule point special cart. An inexpenisive no nonsenes TT. I happy with it and it will likely stay in my system for many years to come. I might change to a better cart in the future.

   Lately there are lots more TT in $1K range. I've never heard the Clearaudio but I like the way they look  But my vote will go to the Rega P3. Simple, set and forget. And with this you will have some money left to put toward the cart.  

   By the way... audioslave just got a P3   Thanks to Mark and Wes for spilling the beans at the Rave. audioslave try to keep it a secret from me until it arrived so he could surprise me next time  I stop by his place... nice try guys

    Anyway, good luck on your search. And more importantly good luck finding space to put it... seem like you have lots of audio stuffs in your room  

Take care,
Buddy

[GBB]

I'd definitely search the Audiogon ads and see what you can find in the way of a used table.  I just did a quick search and found the following table:

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?anlgtabl&1123624051

Its a Eurolabs turntable, which is based on the Scheu turntable components.  You can find out a lot more about Scheu turntables here:

http://www.scheu-analogue.com/eng/

You may not have heard about Scheu turntables, but they were the original inspiration for the Teres turntable project.  The Teres project morphed into three different turntable companies - Teres, Redpoint, and Galibier.

Anyway, this sounds like a great table and if you can haggle a bit then it might be in your price range.

Now just add a tonearm and you're set.  I see OEM Rega 250s or 300s selling in the $250 0 $300 range so that would be one possibility.  If you're willing to step up a bit more then you could try the Graham Robin.  It lists for $650 but you might be able to find one cheaper.  I heard one of these last year on a Galibier turntable with a Zyx cartridge and the tonearm sounded great.  Definitely a winner at its price point.

Anyway, just a few more thoughts.

By the way, I've got no connection to the auction or to any of the companies.  Just a satisified owner of a Scheu turntable.

---Gary

[Bemopti123]

GBB, thanks for the link.

Buddy, as I said before, I have been collecting quite a few records lately and I am getting itchy with getting another aspect of my stereo working.  Analogue, I grew up with when the audiobug hit me in early adolescence.  I used to listen to some old Japanese gear...Technics 1200 and even heard some early or late 1970s Grundig.  Also the rage was tapedecks, old Japanese gear and German stuff.  That stuff sounded fabulous for whatever it was.  

The LPs, used to be Argentine reissues or printings...all pop stuff and some heavy metal that used to be all the rage....We are talking mid 1980s here.  

Well, I am getting old, having too much gear and I thought it was time to begin the analogue journey again.  

Anyway, I am really pursuing this end of the journey.

Paul K

[doug s.]

Trying to get my analogue side going again and play some records through better equipment than my Technic turntable.  What are the best bets on the price points listed?

Requirements:

Universal compatibility with variety of cartridges...some Rega plays seem to be fond of their own brand...VTA issues.

Can be used, but need to rhythmic.

Not interested in reconstructing TT from defunct companies...that might be legendary in performance, but need much tender loving care in terms of mechanics.  

If ...

i would definitely shop used.  i would look for turntables from oracle, well tempered & sota.  as i am partial to my mkv-upgraded oracle w/origin-live dc moter & tonearrm, i would recommend looking at this (w/o arm):  


http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?anlgtabl&1125023429

or this (priced too high, imo):
http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?anlgtabl&1123680500

doug s.

[Bemopti123]

GBB, thanks for the link.  I am the proud owner of the Scheu.  Now, need to become specialist in arms, VTA, bearing and all sort of cartridge matching and tweaking.  I have this feeling that the table will be a stunner.

Paul

[GBB]

Paul,
Thats great - I hope it works out well for you.  The Scheu should be a really fine table.  Its got a great bearing, motor, and platter so all the key pieces are there.  

Any thoughts on what you're going to do for the tonearm and cartridge?  And I guess you also need to worry about a phono stage now .  .  .

It gets complicated fast .

Hope you have fun.
---Gary

[Bemopti123]

I will take the table to a dealer and try some arms.  I am thinking Morch, eventhough I was thinking in staying in the shallower end of the territory.  

The cartriges will have to be either MM or High Output MC, because I already have a phono stage that takes only MM.  What sort of phono stage do you use?

Paul

PS:  Yes, it is getting complicated FAST.

[GBB]

Paul,
I tend to build or modify most of my equipment, so my stuff reflects a strong DIY bias.   The phono preamp that I listen to most often is a long out of production tube stage from New York Audio Labs (NYAL), the company of the late Harvey Rosenberg.  Its called the Super It.  I've tweaked it considerably so it probably sounds better than one you buy off of the used market.  Its got a JFET/tube front end that has lots of gain so that you can use low output MC cartridges directly.  They seem to sell for $250 - $350 on the used market but don't come up very often.  If you are handy with DIY then its an interesting path to good sound.
 
I've also built a phono stage based on the Pass Labs X-ONO.  From time to time over on diyaudio.com, people make up circuit boards based on what Pass has published and I bought some circuit boards and built up a clone.  In my house I find the sound to be very close between these two phono stages with a slight preference for the Super It.  

Strangely, when I take them to other peoples house for tests, there seems to be a strong preference for the Super It - it just seems to travel better to other systems.

Regarding cartridges, right now I'm listening to a Koetsu Black that I bought for a good price used on Audiogon.  The prices of these new are pretty far out of reach.  If you're buying new then Benz makes some very nice cartridges and depending on budget there are also nice ones from Zyx.  At the low end of the price range there is the Denon DL103 which people rave about but requires very careful matching with tonearms and the Sumiko Blue Point.  I've owned a Blue Point and thought it sounded really good but I had it on a very good tonearm and I had to play with cartridge loading to tame the high end.  Its all about matching the cartridge to the tonearm to the table so your idea of working with a dealer is really good.

Let us know how things progress.
---Gary

[Carlman]

I have not yet heard an MM cart that I thought sounded 'magical'.  They've sounded technically good but not great.  Currently I have a HO MC but it's still only 2.5mV output... high but not like the 4-5 range most MM's are... So, that causes issues for some pre's.  

If I had to do it over again, I'd buy a good low output MC (I like Dynavector) and the EE Phonostage.  In fact, I'm planning on buying that phonostage.... just saving money now.  That phono pre has every possible scenario available for cartridges and gets the music right.

Anyway, you have a great table and are doing a lot of work to get a good match of cartridge to arm.... don't skimp on the phono pre.  I think it's more important than the cartridge.  If you need to save money, get the Denon DL103 and the EE Phono... I'd rather have that than a Shelter 901 and a sub $500 phono pre.

Best of luck.  Make sure you hear an MC vs. MM comparison.  To me it's like tubes vs. solid state.

[Beezer]

I'm grooving on my rig right now - Nottingham Interspace ($800 used), Bluenote Borghese arm ($600 used).  No suspension on the turntable so it's straightforward.  The arm's a little tricky (unipivot), but still pretty easy to set up.

I also just purchased a barely used ZYX R100H cartridge ($650) and it is doing the trick.  Check out the review here:

http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue15/zyx.htm

I also had a Rega P3 and tink it's a great starter table.  It certainly bit my butt!

Beez

[Bemopti123]

This Saturday, the set up I was pursuying will come full circle.

Table:  Eurolabs/Scheu Cello.
Cartridge:  Denon DL-103 (brand new, without waiting for 1 full month to be delivered from Japan via Audiocubes)
Phono stage:  a Forte Model 2 preamp with separate power supply via umbilical cord, oldie, but it is 100% flexible and can accomodate the lowest to the highest output MC and MM.  This will have to do until I can recover my senses.

to be fitted:  An arm.  I am leaning towards the Morch, the lower end one with the red dot.

Thanks everyone for the tips.

Especially to GBB for his first tip for me to purchase the table.  

Very soon to be vinyl head Paul.

PS:  Some interesting titles I got in vinyl from ebay and other places:

A set of Ennio Morricone vintage soundtracks,
Alan Parsons Project vinyls, albums that I grew up listening to.
Many older, obscure or famous Jazz titles from the giants of Jazz.  Dizzy, Ella and others.

[BobM]

The Morch is a great arm, either the UP4 (unipivot) or the DP6. I just purchased a DP6 for my own rig.

At the same price point, or slightly less, I would also consider the Hadcock's for sale on Audiogon. Both the Moerch and Hadcock's work best on unsuspended turntables (a truism for most unipivot designs).

You could also consider the Origin Live arms, or modified Rega's by Origin Live or Michell. But I think the Moerch or Hadcock would better them (not speaking from comparitive experience here, just based on my recent research).

Good luck,
Bob

[GBB]

This Saturday, the set up I was pursuying will come full circle.

Especially to GBB for his first tip for me to purchase the table.

Cartridge:  Denon DL-103 (brand new, without waiting for 1 full month to be delivered from Japan via Audiocubes)

to be fitted:  An arm.  I am leaning towards the Morch, the lower ...

Paul,
I'm very glad to hear that things have worked out well for you.  I think you'll really enjoy playing around with vinyl again.

I would like to offer a bit more advice regarding the tonearm and the match to the Denon DL-103.  The Denon is a pretty old fashioned cartridge and likes to be mated with a high mass tonearm.  The Morch, while a really good tonearm, may not be the best match for the Denon.  Let me show you why I think that.
The Morch UP4 comes in 4 different "colors" - each with a different mass.

    *  Green - light, 3.8g total.
    * Red - medium, 5.7g total.
    * Yellow - heavy, 7.4g total.
    * Blue - extra heavy, 13.1g total.

I think the Denon would probably like the heaviest one - the blue, but even that one isn't ideal.  If you do a bit of searching on the web you can find the compliance of the Denon and then calculate the right effective mass to get the resonant frequency just right.

Resonant freq =  1  /   { 2 * pi  *  sqrt (M*C)  }

where M = the sum of the effective mass of the pickup arm and the weight of the cartridge
         C = the compliance of the cartridge = 5 µm/mN
         M = 8.5g (Denon 103 mass) + Tonearm effective mass

The idea is to get the resonance in the 10-12 hz range.

Plugging in the effective masses of the different tonearm colors you get the following:


    *  Green - light, 3.8g total.   F = 20.3hz
    * Red - medium, 5.7g total.  F = 18.9hz
    * Yellow - heavy, 7.4g total.  F = 17.85hz
    * Blue - extra heavy, 13.1g total. F = 15.31hz

To get to the target 10-12hz requires a tonearm of almost 26g to 35g effective mass.  The classic tonearm that people seem to use with the Denon is an SME 3009 or 3012.  One of these could be pretty cost effective but would probably need to be rewired to get the best sound out of it.

Here are a few links that may help you in figuring all this stuff out:

Thom Mackris at Galibier Design, one of the Teres Turntable spin offs, has a very nice page giving details on turntable setup, tonearm / cartridge matching, etc.

http://www.galibierdesign.com/support.html

The folks over in Germany at PhonoPhono have some good advice on tonearms and cartridges and also have good prices.

http://www.phonophono.de/kombination_e.php3?Ebene1=2&menu=6&Kennung=

Have fun.
---Gary

[rmihai0]

Thorens TD-124 or 125 with the tonearm of your choice (Sumiko, SME, Precision Fidelity, etc) and NAD 1130 pre-amp. Cartridge Ortofon OM (10,20, 30 or 40 according with your budget).

[gilbodavid]

GBB that was an interesting post. having owned denon 103 and 304 carts, the 103 on an OLSilver on my Lenco L75 is the best sound I've got so far. Have a Black Widow arm and their manual shows it with a denon 103 cart on it. Can you explain? Didnt get to try it as i wiped out my 103 boo hoo

[GBB]

GBB that was an interesting post. having owned denon 103 and 304 carts, the 103 on an OLSilver on my Lenco L75 is the best sound I've got so far. Have a Black Widow arm and their manual shows it with a denon 103 cart on it. Can you explain? Didnt get to try it as i wiped out my 103 boo hoo

Since my last post, Paul (Bemopti) and I exchanged a few private messages and it looks like my advice may need to be updated.  The calculations I did are accurate in terms of calculating resonant frequencies but there do seem to be other factors involved.  We checked the recommendations from Moerch on the UP-4 tonearm and what wand is the best match for the DL103 and it turns out their recommendation is the yellow wand with an effective mass of 7.4g and a resonant frequency of almost 18hz.

The Origin Live Silver is based on the Rega 250 which has an effective mass of 11g.  That is closer to what I thought would be an optimal match for the DL103 but the resonant frequency is still a bit higher than I would have liked at 16hz.  But you've tried it and it works well and thats the best confirmation that tuning to Denon to that range is a good choice.

Regarding the Black Widow tonearm, I don't know its effective mass so I can't calculate how its resonant frequency with the Denon but if the users manual shows it with the Denon then I trust the manufacturer to have tried it out.

So what does all this mean?  My conclusion is that the idea of tuning the tonearm/cartridge resonance to the 10-12hz range must be something we shoot for with more modern cartridges which aren't as "stiff" as the denon 103.  With a stiffer cartridge like the Denon it appears that people are getting good results tuning to a higher frequency, so that probably is the way to go.

Hope this helps.

---Gary

[Bemopti123]

Without dealing with much hassle, I took SETMAN and myself to the distributor of the Scheu and Morch, Hudson Audio in NJ.  We had the arm fitted, tweaked, VTAded and alligned.  Never realized how labor intensive it was!  Well, got it done and took it to a spin in a system there.  WOW.  
We put some vinyl and all I can tell you, my ears began to tickle.  

Now, I brought he set up home and I am in the process of breaking in a pair of FTA-2000s from Bob Brines, which SETMAN helped me resolder a pair of networks.  

I am waiting for the day when these speakers are fully broken through....it will take 500 hours, but the bass for a single driver.....amazing.  

Of course not all things go smooth and I realize that one side of the preamp that I was using did not produce sound....a shot tube.  Need to check this one up.  But all in all, I am really looking forward to the day when all the components will be broken in and up and running.  

David, thanks for the recommendation of the turntable.  It is a stunner!

Paul