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I need your opinions or advice on picking my very first turtable among these 3 well reviewed at similar price I mentioned above.
Does one of these table give me the sound quality I get from a $2000 CD player ? My dealer told me so.I just want to buy something to keep for long times, I don'e have much times for trading up, upgrade or tweaking any more, I'm new to vinyl and just want something to plug in and play and forget it.
Should I spend more money to get a turntable in the same ballpark as the rest of my system ?
I have a Manley Stingray tube integrated driving Merlin VSM-se with the Bel Canto DAC2 as digital front end.
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The P3. A new one is coming out soon with its own separate power supply. I haven't heard it.I had an MMF that cost $500 about seven years ago, and I could hear its motor turn from across the room. It wasn't of particularly good construction, either. I sent it back and got a Rega.
...perhaps things have changed since you owned your Music Hall, or perhaps you had a bad motor.
and I have been quite happy with it as a result. I don't even hear a "whirr" unless my ear is adjacent to the motor, and it's faint at that. But Jay was right to send it back as that particular sample had obvious problems. I would have done the same.
I've had a Pro-Ject Expression for about 4 years and luv it, but it took a few hundred hrs of tweaking and an addtl $700 in tweaks to get it to where i'll never part with it...or rather, base any future TT purchases on its performance.The budget tables avail today are OK in stock form, but they will require lots of tweaking and TLC to sound like a $2000 cdp. For $500 or less you won't get a good suspension, or one at all. It won't come with a great cartridge & you might end up buying a table that doesn't have all the needed adjustments to make the 'magic' happen. VTA, VTF & Azimuth are important...
maybe look a bit higher up the chain to match your nice components and speakers. Also, the phono preamp is key too. a $2K turntable with a NAD PP2 phono preamp will not sound as good as a hi-end cdp of the same $ IMO. However, a good budget TT that's tuned properly & matched with a slick performing phono preamp will give most 'tables a good run. BUT, now i'm getting close to the $2K mark once you add in interconnects, tt mat, cartidge, power cables, speed controllers, etc.
If i had the $ to spend up front, buying a nice VPI or Funk Firm table, or the venerable modded Technics SL1200 from KAB would be $ well spent. TT's in general require more time & tweaking than a cdp.
Buy one with the engineering built in & you won't have to tweak as much.I bought my Expression with the intention of having incredible sound. That really didn't happen until about 6 months ago, and after dumping a lot more time & $ into the effort.
If you wanted to match the performance of a $500 cdp, that'd be much easier with the budget TT's.
I made a mistake when I said Rega P3, it should be Rega P2.
The P3 is more expensive than the other two.What about the Music Hall MMF-7 ? Is is better than P3 ?
I can buy a MMF-7 with Goldring cartridge included for $1000 new.
Is this a good deal ? It's about the same with P3 + cartridge.
a very good turntable for the money. Especially since the Eroica H isn't a bad cartridge to start out with. Easy to set up and maintain, good tracker, not real fussy about settings (although benefits from proper setup), and plays a good tune with a good preamp.Then, you can upgrade/change cartridges later and the 'table will let the differences be known. I recommend a Herbie's Way Excellent mat. It provides a very quiet background and conveys a bit more bass definition.
The MMF-7 with the Goldring Eroica H cartridge is tough to beat for the price.
I'd go P3, primarily for the RB300 arm. Put a good cart in that arm and you're set. Oh, you will need a good phono stage since the Stingray is line level inputs only. That decision, to a degree, will be dependent on your cartridge selection.
Henry
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