Turntable worth the effort?

sk3lph

sk3lph

sk3lph

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16 May 2007
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864
I have a great room now sorted for films and music, details of which are in the link on my sig.

Many years ago I had a Rega Planar 2 (bought in 1986 or thereabouts) as my main music source which I still have as well as around 300 LP's all in good condition.

By way of an experiment and due to the fact that the amp has a phono input I thought I'd see how vinyl sounds through the new setup with the turntable simply placed on top of the AV rack at the back of the room. My initial impressions are it sounds ok, but not as good as FLAC files ripped to the NAS drive which is my current source of choice, which is also very convenient as tracks can be selected without moving from my chair.

So the question is, should I spend some money and get the turntable properly set up (ie shelf mounted with a new cartridge and stylus - original still fitted) or is it not worth the faff? As an additional note, it was nice and a little strange going through the ritual of putting a record on as it must be decades since I last did that.

Thoughts and opinions most welcome :)
 
MikeTheNative said:
It depends if you have the beard and wardrobe to complete the style, otherwise getting all that stuff is quite expensive.
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:eek: i don't have a beard , it doesn't have to be expensive at all , charity shops are a great source for finding vinyl , i picked up a hawkwind album a few weeks back for £1.50 , its value is £120/£130
 
signs said:
:eek: i don't have a beard , it doesn't have to be expensive at all , charity shops are a great source for finding vinyl , i picked up a hawkwind album a few weeks back for £1.50 , its value is £120/£130
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Nice find.

I'm afraid I already have a bit of a beard, however if I need to get a pipe then there may be a problem.
 
signs said:
:eek: i don't have a beard , it doesn't have to be expensive at all , charity shops are a great source for finding vinyl , i picked up a hawkwind album a few weeks back for £1.50 , its value is £120/£130
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I think he's talking more about the cartridge,stylus and sorting a shelf for it rather than the actual buying of vinyl.
 
tom_e said:
I think he's talking more about the cartridge,stylus and sorting a shelf for it rather than the actual buying of vinyl.
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Again it doesn't have to be expensive ,the turntable i'm using at the moment was about £90 i think . i'm changing that tho for a 1970's pioneer at Christmas :)

i picked up a new amp a few weeks back for £180 (onkyo 9010)
 
sk3lph said:
Nice find.

I'm afraid I already have a bit of a beard, however if I need to get a pipe then there may be a problem.
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just had a look at your cinema room build ..very very nice , i was toying with a star ceiling for mine , would you say its worth it ? :)
 
signs said:
just had a look at your cinema room build ..very very nice , i was toying with a star ceiling for mine , would you say its worth it ? :)
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100% worth it, looks fantastic and really sets the room off and adds to the wow factor in spades. Not regretted for a second getting it done despite the huge amount of hard work I needed to do to get there.
 
Going from experience of using a marantz 6004 phono stage to using a dedicated one I can say on board ok .... but there is a BIG difference getting a separate setup.
 
TALON1973 said:
Going from experience of using a marantz 6004 phono stage to using a dedicated one I can say on board ok .... but there is a BIG difference getting a separate setup.
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I'm starting to think maybe not worth the effort or a least not worth spending a lot of money on - a separate stereo amp and speakers is not an option for the room that I've got.

Edit - on re-read I now see you're talking about getting a separate phono stage instead of using the on-board one, so will still give this further thought.
 
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Iv'e thought of doing the same since selling my Project turntable years ago but i just know it would be a nostalgia thing and within weeks i would become bored of getting up changing tracks and sides.Back to flac,mp3 and the convenience.
 
If you have proper hifi shop around I'd go and demo a few. Try a setup with built in and one separate. My local audio t is amazing . Been using them 15 years
 
If you still have the LP's and have not duplicated them with CD's (well even if you have) a RP2 is going to sound better than sub £400 dac's no ?
I am an RP fan and use it with an audiolab amp with integrated phono, not sure for this level a separate phono amp is justified, would need to be in Linn territory.

Pity there has not been a evolution in the record brush over the last 20 years though, getting the dust off is the only faff element. (need one of those moth cleaners)
 
jpaul said:
I am an RP fan and use it with an audiolab amp with integrated phono, not sure for this level a separate phono amp is justified, would need to be in Linn
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What ???? A £200 rega phono stage will wipe the floor with his current onboard . But I'm upgrading it soon .... just bought a Rega rp6 so need to give it a boost :-)
 
jpaul said:
Pity there has not been a evolution in the record brush over the last 20 years though, getting the dust off is the only faff element. (need one of those moth cleaners)
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If you use a "Super Exstatic" carbon fibre brush, its very fast and easy to get any dust off. For years now i have also been using a "Disco-Antistat" for cleaning records. Yes, it's labour intensive but it's also very cheap and does the same if not better job than a "Moth". The trick is to clean records when you buy them and then just use the brush on them whenever you play them. At 58 i still have all the albums i have ever bought (maybe 2,500 to 3,000), it's very rare that i have to actually clean them, just brush before playing.

My system for those that may be interested consists of:

Airlink 3KVA balanced power supply.
Naim Nait XS2 Amplifier
Naim CD5 XS CD Deck
Michell Orbe SE Record Deck
SME V Arm
Dynavector DV-20X2L Cartridge
Dynavector P75 mk3 Phonostage
Spendor A9 speakers
 
TALON1973 said:
What ???? A £200 rega phono stage will wipe the floor with his current onboard . But I'm upgrading it soon .... just bought a Rega rp6 so need to give it a boost :-)
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For Sk3lph do we know what his Amp is ? I missed that - need to read his home cinema thread ? - but maybe a standalone phono is not justified for him, at this level of turntable, like my RP. there any many competent inbuilt phono stages.
I imagine that for your RP6 (but I am no longer up with RP) it justifies a separate phono.

Kitfit I use what I think is a similar brush carbon+polymide "2+2" but about 15 years old - I probably need to renew it - but it is the final flick to avoid leaving a line of dust on the record that always causes problems for me
 
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