Now for another valuable opinion !@!
I design tube amps and speakers. I think vinyl is great, and yet a flawed medium. I have to say the basic mechanism of the record player hasn't changed in well over 50 years. So modern $2,000. $15,000.. $330,000!~! turntables probably won't do much better spinning than a well designed mid-level vintage turntable from the mid-1970's.
I own five mid-level turntables of 1970's vintage, and I bought a sixth one this past week. Turntables have a basic job to perform - it spins the record, and it holds the cartridge, and there are primarily three ways to do that. Simple...
The spinning must be done with the least addition intervention of noise and extraneous sounds, because these are picked up by the cartridge and added to the music. The first way to spin the record is rim drive, one or more motors spins a flat rubber rim drive wheel which turns the platter. Usual method seen - the motor spins on one side of the rubber rim drive wheel, while the record/platter is in contact with the other. Rim Drive, found in lower end and mid-level turntables is an OK, but flawed method of turning the record. Some motor noise and any defects in the rotating rim drive wheel shows up in the music.
Next - a belt can turn the platter, the belt drive helps absorb minute vibrations from the motor, so less extraneous vibrations are transmitted to the record/platter. Belts Drives are reliable, and most often if defect free initially, it stays that way for years, or decades.
Lastly, Direct Drive, where a motor has its turning center axis as the center of the turntable platter. Here the motor is the platter ( can you say Technics SL1200? ) and any motor noise, or friction, and problems readily show up, as well as wow and flutter and speed anomalies, since the motor is the platter. And while excellence can be achieved, it is rarely seem thirty or forty years down the road. <set rant off>.
So out of these three basic types, it isn't too wild a guess that
ALL those modern $2,000 to $330,000 turntables ARE all belt drive turntables... ( so are all six of my vintage turntables ) none of which cost me more than $150. Yes, all are used, from happy, contented, homes and they work superbly. And sometimes you can get a mint cartridge thrown in too ( in one case I got half a dozen near-mint cartridges and several destroyed ones, thrown in, plus a bunch of valuable head shells ).
The platter can be cast metal, heavy or light, or acrylic which looks better, but tends to be pricey. Its job is to spin, so the bearing under it can be quiet or noisy. Better designs such as the AR, Thorens, and Lynn, separate the base from the working parts essentially holding them on springs which isolate the record/platter/arm from many room and environment vibrations. Other types may not have an isolated transport. Most 30 to 40 y/o turntables need to have the oil changed, and shipping any turntable with the platter in place is a recipe for disaster. Again, lots of things to consider!!!
So my own suggestion - get a vintage set, and then have mucho money left over to buy several cartridges, these days cartridges seriously worth considering go from about $100. to over $5,000+. Of course, likely some of the better
Vintage Cartridges were better than most of what is made today, unless you get real pricey. Hmmm... A new car or a cartridge ?? The stylus in a given cartridges have about a 1,500 to 4,000 hour life, depending on the tracking force applied; so a low hours vintage cartridge can be a serious pursuit. Most cars last a lot longer these days.
I have about fifteen cartridges, and five are still in the box, another five probably have under 200 hours, and the last five have a couple of hundred hours. Beware, like anything else, there is likely a 25 to 50 hour break-in period for a cartridge, when it will sound variable and great or terrible until it gets its
legs-on!
I don't see any serious problems with well designed vintage arms that have removable / replaceable head shells. I never got the whole "curved arm thing" I prefer a straight arm with a removable head shell - always... This facilitates change of cartridges without doing the three to six hour annoying Needle and Arm "Alignment and Setup Process" and then the tweaking and other nonsense that is a
must-do to get the best sound... (maybe). And four or five hours later... are you sure it sounds better now... or worse ? Can't remember what it sounded like before??? Hmmm. Crank it up another quarter of a gram lets try this alignment thing again. Where is that digital gauge?
Yeah, I think the cat ate it?My own choices for vintage vinyl playing - AR Turntable, better ones like the ESL which has a much better arm will cost several hundred dollars, the lowest level AR XA, AR XB, while obviously a cost constrained product, it can be upgraded, and with some work, can have a better quality arm put on. Thorens mostly has a similar design, with more powerful motors and heavier platters than the AR's; the TD-125, TD-126, TD-145, TD-160, TD-165, TD-166, and the various TP-11, TP-16 arms, and MKII and MKIII versions are well designed. Also the TD-124 was a rim-drive and yet very sought after (Why?) TD-150's and the TP-13 arms and headshells probably are a bad idea, seem to be another cost constrained design.
Almost any Bang & Olufson cartridge after the SP-10.... the SP-12, SP-14, MMC-1, MMC-4, MMC-5, MMC-20, etc. Sumiko, Grado ( no Grado on AR's due to hum ) and Ortofon have many to choose from, depends what you prefer. Also Shure's better than the M-91ED... M97x, the V-15 type II, type III, etc. Plus Vintage cartridges from Acutex, Empire, or Micro-Acoustics, Stanton, Audio Technica, Denon made lots of cartridges, and the last two still do.
Then you get into the whole tip geometry thing. Is a Conical really less distorted, everything else being equal? Will an Elliptical ridge ride better in the grooves, or an exotic shibbata or fine line??? Will a .2 x .7 be better sounding than a .4 x .7 elliptical? Which is optimum for surface noise and record wear ? Now lets talk arms, carbon fiber or aluminum, straight or curved ? And Arm Pivot types - Occam's Razor ? Yeah, now - Cantilever Materials and Tip Mass; and now Tonearm Alignment ( also platter mats, and various hold down thingies ) and lets not forget Arm Resonance ~!!! Gee there is a lot to know! Azimuth, Vertical Tracking Angles, Height adjustments, Overhang, Antiskating, Digital VTF Gauges, Arm Wire Capacitance, Ground Wire or not Ground Wire... Record Cleaning and paper versus plastic for those inner sleeves, pop and click removal? There is really a lot to consider without blowing all your money on a modern high priced rig and a single cartridge... And those records bid up on eBay, Ha!
What if you break off the stylus by not watching what you are doing, and then you're out a thousand dollars in the first day of record spinning, before you even get to play the thing... ? Then What ? I'd prefer if it was a $75. vintage cartridge, where I could get a replacement cheaply, or a stylus for under $50 or so. Ever price stylus replacement on a non-replaceable $5,000 cartridge ?
Of course, if you have a hankering for that $5,000 modern cartridge or a moving coil and all that,
THAT entails, nothing will prevent you from mounting it in your Vintage Turntable and getting the best sound ever...
Now, lets talk Preamps and SET Amplifiers... well, maybe some other time. I have equipment to design and build.
Steven L. Bender, Designer of Vintage Audio Equipment
Hello! 
I know absolutely nothing about vinyl or turntables... Could you help me in finding my first record player, and in answering a number of newbie-type questions I've got?
Thanks! I knew I could count on you, internetstrangersfromwhomItakewhilegivi ngnothinginreturn.
I'd like to get into the "bottom-end of the sweet spot", with my first turntable purchase. Nothing that's more than a few hundred US dollars, if possible - but that's still ever-so-slightly more-than-good-enough to show me what the magic of vinyl is all about. Can you make some recommendations? Are there any good sources for refurbished models? Is the stylus the most important part of the turntable? Are all stylus compatible with all tonearms/turntables? Should I upgrade my stylus right away - how much difference does it make?
Once I've got one, what do I need to integrate into my system? Ideally, I'd like to be able to just plug it straight into my headphone amp (my headphone amp has RCA inputs). Is this possible? I looked at my father's turntable and on its RCA outputs it has an additional wire - the "GROUND" wire. What is this about? Does this mean I can't use the turntable with my headphone amp?
I also listened to my father's turntable. I chose a record that looked perfectly clean, free of dust or particles - yet when I played it, there were still pops and clicks. Is this normal? Was this because he has a particularly old/cheap turntable?
Finally, what are some good ways to build my record collection? I love avant-garde, classical, and experimental/historical Eastern European (Eisler, Weil, Shostakovich, etc.), but also plenty of more mainstream stuff like soundtracks to films (of the whole 20th century, from early to late). I searched for a few titles I was interested in, and was dismayed to see that they are rare/expensive...I feel like I'm in a race against deterioration/collectors to get the music I want before it's all gone! How should I go about collecting the titles I want before they disappear? What are good sources from which to buy, besides the obvious eBay?
Thank you so much for your help!!!!
