Home Vinyl Asylum

Welcome Licorice Pizza (LP) lovers! Setup guides and Vinyl FAQ.

RE: Vintage ARXA VRS New Turntable
















Pictures of my AR with new arm and NOS Pickering XV15 1200E/D1200 installed before gifting it to my son. My Grado Platinum was now on my Grace arm also pictured with the "Rock".

As you can see the AR looks fantastic with its new arm, and really sounds great too. But even with that it just couldn't compete with the completely stock Kenny, and it looks in another league too. Sure the AR can be upgraded ad nauseum but that's true of both decks. A better maybe more fair comparison would be with the KD550, it came with a stock arm supplied by Kenwood. Although I've heard it was no slouch so maybe still.......

But that's not the point. My point is, the KD500 with the right arm would be a big step up for about the same money and they usually come with a botique arm.

The problem is many of these great arms were designed with high compliance cartridges in mind, not as prevalent these days. That's why my suggestion of the KD770D, right out of the box it's a table that the AR would need mucho $$$$$ thrown at it to attempt to compete.

I purchased my KD770D last yr for less than the value of the Denon DL301 cartridge included. Many will be listed for much more, and it's worth every penny, but with a bit of patience and some haggling you should be able to score one for under 4 Benjamins.

Good luck and enjoy what ever your decision.

Martin

Edit: What do you know, always following certain items on eBay I see a new listing for a KD500/Grace G707 combo, very popular arm on this table. Great table, really like mine, maybe more than the KD770D with the mods I've made to the 500, but stock the 770 is so much better at handling acoustic feedback like a sprung table does.



Edits: 05/07/17 05/07/17 05/07/17

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  Crux Audio  


Follow Ups Full Thread
Follow Ups

FAQ

Post a Message!

Forgot Password?
Moniker (Username):
Password (Optional):
  Remember my Moniker & Password  (What's this?)    Eat Me
E-Mail (Optional):
Subject:
Message:   (Posts are subject to Content Rules)
Optional Link URL:
Optional Link Title:
Optional Image URL:
Upload Image:
E-mail Replies:  Automagically notify you when someone responds.