Want to Start vinyl

I'll be one of the lone dissenters here and say go for it. I had about 40 decent records from my few years prior to the advent of CD, (had much more than 40 but those were the only ones I'd still want to listen to). I wanted to get back into vinyl. Some said don't, some said try a cheap tt. I ended up doing neither.

I went out bought a VPI Scout, (actually my wife gave it to me as a Christmas gift), with an inexpensive Rega cart. I used the phono stage from an old receiver I had kicking around. Over the next 6 months I upgraded the cart/phono to a Dynavector Karat and Dynavector P-75. Truth be told I could have stopped there but I'm an upgrade junkie and have kept changing things. The point is that for me I've been very happy with my setup from the Karat/P-75 on, (heck even with the rega cart it was OK).

Anway, I've purchased many new and used records since then and grown my collection to about 400 lp's. The above posters are right, new vinyl's not cheap but for some of the music I like there is quite a bit of good new vinyl and it's not that much more than CD. Also, now many smaller record companies are including free mp3 downloads which is great for portability.

Anyway, a long winded way of providing an alternate opinion. I like looking around for vinyl, don't mind paying a premium for an obvious niche product and like the extra involvement about using/maintaining a tt. Most important, it sounds great.

I would say buy the following

Scout - 1100 (ad here on A-gone)
Dynavector P-75 (seen for about 400 used on A-gone but nothing currently listed)
Dynavector 20XL or Karat 17D2 or 17D3, (450 to 695)

Total arond 2100 plus cables.

Just my 2 cents and best of luck

Bryan

Buy used. Read the forums and decide which table is for you. I would get an entry level zyx cartidge. My nephew has the "Bloom". It is an excellent little cartridge. Definately go moving coil. I've heard mm cartridges that were over $1000.00, they were nicer than cd but the zyx bloom was much nicer.

I get a kick out of people who look at vinyl shopping as work. THIS IS A HOBBY. I enjoy the s**t out of vinyl hunting. BTW - Don't be suprised when you find yourself listening to the turntable alot more than you listen to the cd player. Put it this way - Once I got a turntable and heard the difference - My cd player was sold.

The Rega P3 turntable is a really nice place to start and they have just upgraded it, as well. If you get into the whole vinyl thing and want to upgrade, you will get most of your money out of it. A fine cartridge match is the Dynavector DV10X5, which matches the table well. A marvelous phono preamp to go with this rig is the Jolida. Costs new will be around $800.00 turntable, $380.00 phono cartridge, $340.00 phono preamp. A really nice system that will allow you to enjoy a lot of recorded music that will not ever make it to CD for around $1500.00 new, certainly less if used.

I agree, the P3 is a great table. I actually only have the P2 right now and couldn't be happier. I'm using a Clearaudio cartridge and an inexpensive project phono amp. I love my vinyl in a way that I could never love a CD or mp3. Vinyl hunting is one of my favourite hobbies.

Needless to say, I say go for it!

Go for it! I just bought a turntable at the beginning of March, and acquired at least 200 albums in the next 2 months for probably $300 or maybe less. Even most of the vinyl I've fished out of the dollar bins and thrift shops have been very clean sounding. I do a pretty picky visual inspection before paying, though.

I bought a Technics SL 1210 M5G and alternate between Ortofon OM 10 and Shure M97xE cartridges mounted on their own headshells so switching is easy. I play it into an Amber Model 17 preamp that has both MM and MC inputs. It cost me a whopping $130 at a pawn shop.

I *really* like the Technics DD tables. They're very rugged, built to ridiculousy close tolerances (1/2 a micron, anyone?), speed is dead-nuts accurate, they're *very* quiet, and the controls are intuitive and silky smooth. You can elevate the clarity and soundstage significantly by placing the turntable on a thick maple or butcher block cutting board slab with shock absorbing footers under the slab, such as Vibrapods or Mapleshade Isoblocks.