Five under $300 turntables, five great ways to get into vinyl 

Haha! So true! Down the ol’ rabbit hole ya go...

That's why I gave up vinyl ages ago. Not worth the hassle, and it doesn't sound superior .... crackles and all 😜Files don't need a cartridge, don't collect dust, can faithfully reproduce all the frequencies and stereo image without mastering tricks vinyl needs , no speed wobbles, no centring issues, all the limitations I happily live without. In my house RIP vinyl, for a good 15 years or more now. The audiophiles hanging onto relics of the past. 😁

@@afborro most of my collection is digital now too, but I still enjoy playing my records. I was just joking about the depth of the vinyl rabbit hole.

@@ericdaniel323 Ha, well my comment was sort of tongue in cheek also 😀 while also expressing an element of truth. IMO there is nothing inherently special about vinyl to make me even consider investing in it these days ... at all, especially versus cost.

@@afborro There is a magic that happens at a certain level that sounds organic and human that can only be approximated by digital over $4000. Yes, a hassle, yes a nightmare just aligning your cartridge and yes, getting up every 20 minutes and Zerostatting, carbon brushing, stylus cleaning....Is it worth all the extra hassle? To some of us, yes, in fact totally so, to others, not so much. I've just invested in a Michell Gyrodec, Linn arm, Hana SL cart and a Gold Note PH-10 phonostage and in comparison to my Mytek Brooklyn Bridge, my analog front end simply sounds more unrestrained and natural. It really boils down to this, If the pleasure that the music brings you is better TO YOU, is it worth the ritual, hassle and expense? To me there's no question that it is indeed very worth it.

So thousands in the money of today and increasing all the time as money is devalued more and more

Top tier? Kids, say no to drugs!

If between 81 and 82 I'd go with 82. Specs and motor type and design is far superior on the reference 82-85 (same tables). Plus have upgrade path for platter if you want to later on.

That's great to hear. Would you recommend it for a first turntable for an entry level player?

Mick Taylor I definitely would, it is my 1st turntable & I’m still happy with it. Checkout the Turntable Labs website, they have some great videos on how to set it up. I wouldn’t consider it entry level but again, it was my 1st & I had no problems setting it up with no prior experience. I’m still very happy with it & have no plans to upgrade at this point.

I too have the Debut, have upgraded to a acrylate platter and have bought another weight for mc cartridge. Platter helped immensely with static hum, the original ortofon cartridge was okay, but noticeable shortcomings became apparent when I switched to primaluna tube amp and pro-ject tube phono stage.

yes, lincoln had the gift - those early pressings played with tubes were hard to beat. had them all including one they gave me which had been returned when i stopped by. great stuff. tubes and the straight wire - today a by=gone concept. still have my vinyl up on shelves in the closet - just got a Marantz int amp and going to get a fluance table. my raga 3 is long gone and my son has my Marantz 8b.

Agreed, I have nothing but good things to say about UTurn, and they are made in the USA.

I later added a Ortofon 2m red already had a cork mat from Klipsch.

Purchased same Teac TN300e table cherry finish, purchased a beefier toroidal power supply to get rid of the slight background hum and upgraded to an Ortofon Blue cart. It is not only one of the best looking tables for the money but with the power supply and cartridge upgrade, great sounding too!

I have the same Cart on a 80's Onkyo belt table I fixed up. Great sound and rock solid speed after I did some modifying. ( EE ) I have original pressing of Chicago transit authority and the first 4 Chicago albums. As well as Pink Floyd and of all things , Flip Wilson. Also a few Monkee's originals. I have all but Flip on CD as well. The oldest cd's are not bad but the newer Chicago cd's are much more compressed sounding and the horns don't blare out like on the records. I am a sucker for those horns. I have Klipsch speakers and the Klipsch horns just sound so good. I prefer the actual speakers to my HD595 cans. It isn't high end but damn it sounds so good. I have a rebuilt AudioSource Amp200 driving a 12" sealed sub and when the sub and the horns belt out Chicago, It fells like I am at the concert listening live. Stereo amp is an old 2001 ish Onkyo TX-DS676. If you match older good stuff together you can have great sound for cheap. I only have maybe 1000 total into everything for 2 channel audio, and a few hundred more for the whole 5.1 surround setup. ( speakers were a $1000 kit 1/2 off at x-mas for only 500 with free shipping.)

As well it should.......

I have the AT and the speed stability AND accuracy is amazing on it!

Ever check out Ian in Singapore he does a lot of Goldring reviews and likes that japanese brand. Very animated and funny guy the tour of the "stereo mall" had a lot of wow factor...

@@JohnDoe-np3zk Of course. HiViNewsChannel :)

I got the Onkyo CP1008a, did some mods to make the speed even more accurate and added a Red Cart. Very good table for around $175 all total several years ago. Just took some electronics know how. I have old original pressings of Chicago and The Monkees and 1 Pink Floyd and 1 RUSH.

Drop+audio technica carbon vta 399 USD

Between rt80/81/82 I'd go with the 82. The reference 82-85 tables have the best motor that calibrated la itself 500x a second. Great wow and flutter specs for a new turntable. Many forget the old technics that spec out at .03% were back then. Most likely either from sitting or from use most likely won't spec out to that now. .07% is really low for any of the tables 82-85 and usually have to spend a whole lot more to get that kind of wow and flutter rating.

tere are plenty of all-analogue recording studios

That is a dam good looking table for the price! Thanks!

I love mine...speed stability and accuracy are amazing on it!!

isn't your profile pic , the guy who thought the comet was a spaceship for the soul? if not, sorry , if so haha

Donald Johnson “Heaven’s Gate”. Climb aboard!

I agree. Having said that the Yugo will take you from point A to point B as the Lexus or the Maserati but....please fill in the blank.

@@andrewdoan1293 haha Yugo legend

www.needledoctor.com/The-QUP

I have a fully manual table and my stylus has never hit the label. Every single record has a continuous loop run out groove so I don't know why your stylus was hitting the label because it's impossible.

@@crazyprayingmantis5596 It might be HIGHLY unlikely, but certainly not impossible. NOTHING is impossible!!! That's one of the few things I'm positive of in this crazy world.

@@crazyprayingmantis5596 You got me, maybe it was the TT... I would not have bothered posting the above if the above did not happen. Used to drive me nuts.

If a record is made right that doesn't happen. Of about 1,200 LPs I've got two with this problem: Minutemen "The Punchline" (SST), Bela Bartok- Contrasts for Violin and Piano (Dover). On both, the labels aren't affixed correctly. They over lap the run-out groove's locking point so rather than looping as it should, the needle hops on to the label and goes for noisy panic-inducing ride.

ghiagoo - War Robots Thorens makes of you and I reviewed one. Google my name and Thorens and you’ll find it

Steve Guttenberg Audiophiliac . Thanks. Just got back into audio, in December. Went for vintage stuff. Got a Thorens TD 125 Mk II which is great of course, but realized I missed the fully automatic my parents had. I started grinding a deeper groove into the end of a record , when I stepped away to get something to eat. Had to wipe powder off the the record and the stylus.

Looks like plastic fake wood, which is what it is. Black would look better.

@@NoMoreRadioMyths it's solid wood actually, so you're wrong.

@@TakeTheVeilESP I stand corrected. Its not plastic but MDF, which is not solid wood. Construction Material Plinth: MDF

Oooh MDF, even better.

Claude C DJ (disc jockey) turntables were more robust models that were fully manual (there were a lot if semiautomatic/ fully automatic ones at one time) that would allow you to move the record in reverse to cue the song up to where it started or so it matched the beat of the song that currently playing. They had to get to proper speed quickly, allowed quick stops for changing records, and had a speed control. A cartridge that allowed back cueing (having the stylus on the record while moving the record backwards) as well as the fabulous scratching effect without damaging the stylus or cartridge was also necessary. The Technics, Stanton and Numark direct drive TT’s were very popular. Many people ended up using these as their home tables.

@Claude C All of what he said @Bill Willard ​ and they're mostly powered by direct drive motors, because they allow for cueing, while most hifi turntables today use a belt drive motor. belt drive transmits fewer vibrations and therefore creates a lower noise floor, a direct drive motor is going to be more consistent in its speed, quicker in getting to that speed, and you can back cue with them, but they are a bit louder. you could theoretically dj with any turntable, although one with direct drive would make the most sense, speed controls, and easily swappable cartridges are a plus, but 'dj turntable' is just a marketing term and has no clearly defined meaning.

Thanks to Bill and Amaziah for clarifying that question.

@@amaziahofjudah9722 All old Technics direct drive turntables are quieter than their belt driven siblings. Most of DDs have noise at minus 78 dB and BDs - only minus 70 dB.

@@IliyaOsnovikov Sure, Technics made and makes some fantastic direct drive turntables and in any case, the differences between a good Technics' direct drive and a good belt drive are going to be minute when it comes to the noise they emit. But Technics never markets their turntables as "DJ turntables' they sell their DDs labeled as HiFi. Turntables that are actively marketed as such (and as explained in my previous comment, deceptively so) shouldn't be compared to a Technics turntable, although some resellers pop that label on there when selling them, seemingly believing their customers to be not very educated when buying their turntable.

As is the Reloop rp4000 or even better rt7000

Bluetooth may be convenient in some cases, but causes big degradation in audio quality. Connecting a simple pair of RCA cables is not hard and would make it sound much better.

I got one. Nice.

I have this table, I like it a lot. It's pretty much the same thing as the Fluances and the entry-level ELAC.

It's amazing the prices possible when you manufacture in a country that has slavery!

@@keithb6717 what? Fluance is a Canadian company.

@@tharveytucker1 Correct! Except their turntables are MADE in China! www.fluance.com/review/product/view/id/31569/

He thinks it feels flimsy and has a plastic headshell. He is not well informed !

Maxiinti CD player? No one plays cds anymore

jogmas12 Why not use both worlds

jogmas12 Yes people do still play CDs on CD Players.

Michael Brannighan come on now. CD is old technology. Vinyl is where the future is headed.

jogmas12 You are kidding aren’t you? Vinyl is considerably older than CD. Personally I enjoy both formats.

What kind of haircut do you want?

You might want to check out the threads in AudioKarma where people who bought this turntable had various problems. The biggest was a noisy motor, but there was also a guy who got a warped platter. If you do buy a Pro-Ject, you should buy from a local dealer who will help you if you have a problem.

I purchased a Pro Ject debut carbon about 3 years ago. A little different than the model your asking about but I upgraded the platter and installed an Ortofon 2m Red and it’s been a pleasure listening through my setup. Haven’t had any issues at all. Cheers

@@vinyl1Earthlink I'd heard of problems with the Debut Carbon and the need for removing a bolt or screw that caused some noise issues but I thought that had been fixed with the RPM 1 Carbon (but maybe I'm wrong) problem is there isn't a dealer for any audio gear anywhere close to me so I need to buy it online. Thanks for the advice I will do some more research........ Cheers.

@@deegz That's good to hear, both the Debut and RPM 1 are over $500 here in Australia so they are both at the limit of my budget for now, I already have a Technics SL120 but it's too wide to fit in the cabinet for the room I'm using plus the strobe light has blown and the speed is outta whack... Thanks for the reply, Cheers Mate.............

@@deegz - Yes, the vast majority of Pro-Jects do work correctly. Many owners are completely satisfied. The problem is when you buy one online, and it turns out to be a lemon, then you've got a problem

Umm... Welcome to 2019. Most vintage Japanese tables are fetching many multiples of $300.

@@tifosinh Not from where I'm standing - in the UK, at least, there are still quite a few going at auction for under £100. Let the bedroom DJs pay over the odds for low-end Technics or Pioneer decks because of the name - look at the humble Aiwas, Akais, Hitachis, Kenwoods or Toshibas. They don't get the love, but they're all of a kind.

Getting a motor for a belt drive is not easy or not available....A used motor will have terrible speed fluctuation.. Over 10 years ago I bought a old used Technics belt drive and I could not listen to it any more after about a month..I called Technics and any one I could find about a motor,,,,no luck and that was 11 years ago .. The direct drives seem to last much longer and with better speed control...

And it will be twice better too.

@@VIDSTORAGE Most likely all you needed to do was to clean that motor inside and lubricate it's bearings. But you are right the direct drives do last longer and require less maintenance.

Oh, come on.... A typo?!

@@tomcollens4621 I feel a great shift in the cosmos

Oh, how low the once great have fallen. It used to be a mark of journalistic pride to use correct English, grammar, and punctuation. Journalists would applaud anyone who pointed out a typo in their work, so that it could be corrected. They took pride in their work like any good craftsman. Now, we are reduced to "i like ur turntabl. Do u think mine sounds good. ill check out there turntbl to." These kinds of low-brow, knuckle-dragging attempts at communication are enough to make a grown man cry, I tell ya! The lackadaisical replies to the OP show that things will not be improving anytime soon, unfortunately.

@@HareDeLune too much fluoride. Where I live the City has been proudly poisoning the masses with aluminum plant waste (how interesting the aluminum plant was here too!) since 1945! They fought like hell against pulling that out because everybody knows it prevents cavities (along with dropping your IQ)

@@JohnDoe-np3zk Just one source out of many, unfortunately. Do you know any school teachers? If so, ask them about the state of education in this country, if you dare...

I bought two CD players in the last 12 months. Cambridge transport with a Pro Ject S2 DAC and Discontinued Emotiva ERC 3 (decodes HDCDs)

@@3lueant347 Exactly! I thought it funny when he said that as I've been looking into adding a CD transport to my system. Great purchase though, I bet it sounds amazing!

99% of the sound quality of a turntable comes from the cartridge. If you don't like how a $300 turntable sounds, just put a better cartridge on it and you'll have 95% of the sound quality of a turntable that's 10 times the price. They do mention noise and speed consistency, which are really the only important sound quality considerations in turntables at this level.

@@ModernClassic I've been having a internal battle over that, got the RT-81 2 years ago for Christmas, and will hopefully get a new cart (at-vm95ml) for a Christmas present, I keep looking at tables in the $1k-$2k range and wonder would it really be worth it? My 81 is dead solid on both speeds, and has zero rumble whatsoever, and has the nice feature of cue arm stop, stop at end of record, and a switch to change speeds as I play 45 just as mush as 33.

Is there a tremendous difference In sound between 2? Where you still happy with your purchase?

Why though when you could have just bought the Rega 3 for just under 1000 dollars ? 🤷🏾‍♂️

I was using a PS3 for my front end. I really liked the ability to upsample to 192Khz. with custom dithering. The sound quality was quite respectable to me, especially when I got brave (some might say crazy) enough to experiment with modifications to reduce and remove vibration & resonance. I believe these consoles have an untapped potential for great sound if you're willing and able to go to extremes with modification. I have read that they kept the audio upsampling feature in the PS4. Do you know about, or use that feature yourself? There is also an underground audiophile cult around the Playstation 1, model SCPH-1001 (SCPH-1002 in Europe) which had an unbelieveably good DAC built in, and RCA outputs for the audio signal. Check out this review on Six Moons: 6moons.com/audioreviews/leben2/system.html Also, listen to this video over any good audio system to get a taste: m.ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-bfScm7DqUU0.html

@@HareDeLune, wow! Thank you! I'd considered getting a used PS3 for CD playing purposes, but assumed a gaming console would probably fall in line with using a DVD or Blu Ray player in terms of quality. Plus the lack of display isn't a big deal, and certainly not a negative... But I saw the idea of having one to be a pleasant addition. I actually don't know anything about audio upsampling on the PS4, once I discovered that it didn't play CDs? I didn't bother to dig any deeper.

@@russellborrego1689 How deep do you want to go? Being a rabbit myself, I've been pretty far down the rabbit hole. : ) Would be glad to offer help and advice on any aspect of using Playstation Consoles as front end.

@@HareDeLune, how do you feel a stock PS3 compares to the onkyo DXC390? Or better yet, what should *I* look for between the two audio performance-wise? Out of the few CD players I've looked at, the Onkyo is the front runner as far as general online opinion. I actually have a old PS3 at our camper, and I could always just buy a Blu Ray player to replace it. Until you weighed in, I didnt spend any time at all with the idea of it being a viable audio source. Modifications are probably out of the question, electronics has never been my forte.

@@russellborrego1689 Not being in the least familiar with the Onkyo, I looked it up briefly. I see that it is a multi-disc changer. I can tell you this: Single disc players always sound better than multi-disc, as a rule of thumb. Also, there are always exceptions to everything. The PS3 shouldn't sound anywhere near as good as it does, but here we are. I think you should try finding those upsampling settings on your PS4 first, then play some well-encoded, high bit-rate mp3 files through it to get a feel for what's possible. The only thing that will cost you is some time and effort. As for modifications to the PS3, they were all physical modifications designed to reduce vibration & resonance, and to help the unit run cooler. Look here for the first lines of defence: hubpages.com/games-hobbies/3-tips-for-a-cooler-running-and-greener-ps3-system-models-cecha01-cechg01- This is only information on keeping them running cooler, nothing to do with vibration. One step at a time. Heat is the great killer of all electronics, and the PS3 runs like an oven. I have literally used it as a space heater for small rooms. The above information is vital for longevity. Also, if you have an original "phat" PS3, with the model number CECHA01, give it to me!! : D Seriously, if you have that model, you should know that it will play SACD's as well as Blu-ray discs. Here is a little-known website which is dedicated to that: www.ps3sacd.com Hope you enjoy!

After shopping I found the fluance servo motor to be the best for now and longevity. Checks speed like 500x a second or something. But servo motors are quiet and powerful and have a very long life expectancy

The lack of color options is what has kept new from picking one up.

I wish Fluance made an 85 without the exposed belt. I think exposed belts look horrible.

Ania Knees?

Roksan you don't have to wear that dress tonight?

Agree,especially - but not only - in the budget class new turntables are at a (quality and comfort) loss against vintage turntables. The only advantage new turntables have is a warranty card. Regarding the PS-X6: Back then this was a upper middleclass offering,but in todays standart it is clearly way above that - and then some.

Rastislav Ledaj there is a good reason why vintage turntables were better up to a certain price point. Read this: There is the reality of economies of scale. In the 1970's, when vinyl was THE medium for audio playback, a company like Technics, Kenwood, Sony, etc. could design and produce a audiophile quality turntable and price it reasonably. Knowing that they were going to be able to sell x1,000 units allowed them to find a balance between price and quantity. Now, even with the vinyl resurgence, the market for turntables is astoundingly smaller. The only units that are going to sell in substantial quantity are the entry level to mid-fi units. If you are going to make your money in quantity, you need to reduce your cost per unit, by using lower-end, mass-market components in order to maximize the profit. Once you start pushing the psychological barriers of dollar thresholds (like +$500 or +$1,000, +5,000) then your consumer base drops considerably. At that point (especially in the +$1,000 and beyond bracket) you are dealing with a different type of consumer who values different elements of the turntable over someone who is only willing to pay $200-300. Very often that person will appreciate and understand the engineering and craftsmanship that goes into a well put together piece of equipment. There is also the element of return on investment. Outside of materials, there is the time, energy, experience and knowledge (mostly the last two) that the company or individual creating the turntable sees as a quantifiable value. The +$1,000 buyer mentioned above is usually one, who through their own life experience, understands and appreciates what it means to have a skill set and knowledge base that isn't material, but definitely valuable. That is a lot of what is being priced into audiophile level turntables. That and the limited consumer base dictates that the turntable be priced a level of profitability that will sustain the business beyond cost expenditures. Basically I would not spend less than $1200 on modern turntable today

Graham Strahle It absolutely, positively had to keep a steady speed without wavering, and hopefully a fairly accurate speed. A table that can’t do that is useless.

These are under $300 tables, Regas are more $$$.

Ahhh - just £250 (=$325) here in UK for Planar 1 - thought it might be just on the money as we pay 20%tax, however a quick search has revealed Planar 1 is a whopping $475 in USA!