I still think OP would be wasting the vinyl with a Zepplin . But I suppose if monies tight .....
Tend to agree and only 30 albums... It's a fad people think they want to get into or back into without realising what's involved, the costs and commitment required to make work. Stream from Spotify or Tidal would be cheaper and easier.
From a purist standpoint you're both right. However, if someone wants to indulge in a bit of nostalgia and they have the presence of mind to try to make the best purchase they can for their money rather than throwing cash at some piece of junk then really, who are we to question their motives? Let them be to make up their own mind.
At a minimum at be looking at something like a amp with built in phono stage ... say Marantz 6004 or lower series that does the same thing ... or go rega amps , with the option of 2nd hand . Then pick up a nice budget £100 set of speakers .... and to hear anything worth while id got project debut Turntable but a better alternative a rega . The speakers can be taken out of the price if headphones is an option.
But at a basic "nice" listen its easily over £600 - £900 . But even at that price it will make the cd equivalent sound rubbish
As for the issue about vinyl being wasted on the Zeppelin, or the idea that somehow vinyl only makes sense with a dedicated separates system, then forgive me for saying but I think that's a bit of an elitist attitude. Back in the day thousand upon thousands of stereo system buyers were perfectly happy listening to their vinyl on a stack system or music centre. Compared to a lot of them then today's Zeppelin is probably a better piece of gear for the reproduction of music than many of the stacks and midi's that sat in living rooms across the land when vinyl was in its heyday.
Sure, there's better gear. There always has been. If you really want to go crusading for quality then how about starting with the ubiquitous Bluetooth speaker which seems to be the current youth market's sum total of audio aspiration?
Who's to say that digging out the old record collection won't scratch some old itch to get back in to proper Hi-Fi or, if they never dipped a toe in before, to go at least to find out how good music can sound given half a chance. I think it's better to take enquiries such as this one and leave the door ajar in case they want to explore some more rather than slamming it closed because they're not spending enough.
Cleisthenes, going for a pure Hi-Fi-focussed turntable such as one of the Pro-Jects means foregoing a lot of the convenience features of the semi-automatic turntables such as the Denon and AT. Semi-automatic means things such as the turntable arm will cue itself from rest and move over to the disc and lower itself rather than you having to do this manually. It will also lift off and then park back in to the arm rest once the record has been played. Other convenience features are push button selection for the speed and the dust lid.
Apart from the simple on/off switch the Pro-Jects are completely manual so that no money is wasted on the mechanics to move the arm when it could be better spent elsewhere. The Elemental doesn't even come with a dust cover, but happily the Essential 2 does. Your Dad might place more emphasis on convenience rather than outright sound quality, or vice versa. You know him, we're just chucking ideas in to the pot. If you think he'd prefer the sound quality then go for the Essential 2. At current new LP prices the difference in cost is roughly equivalent to buying 5 albums, which isn't huge if you think he might like to expand his collection.
If you're curious about whether you'd hear the difference in sound quality then try a little experiment. Take a good CD and make an MP3 rip of a couple of tracks at 160kbps. Repeat this but make a FLAC rip instead. Personally for demo listening I use simple recordings that don't get too busy. Mary Chapin Carpenter
Stones in the Road, Miles Davis
Kind of Blue, David Grey
White Ladder, Marc Cohn
Marc Cohn; they've all got well recorded instruments and most have vocals too. They're good tools for sorting out the wheat from the chaff. You should be able to tell 160kbps from FLAC fairly easily. FLAC is lossless whereas 160k MP3 does change the character of the sound quite a bit. Next, try 192kbps MP3. This will be harder to distinguish but you should still be able to hear that the timing between the instruments is a bit off. If you can, then IMO buying the Pro-Ject deck isn't wasted on the Zeppelin. Good luck
