Comments on: A Beginner’s Guide to Buying Your First Turntable

By: Dean Singh

Dean Singh — Thu, 16 May 2013 21:27:58 +0000

Indeed the three suggested models are the pinnacle of inexpensive turntables.
Vinyl is tricky these days…..look for original pressings and get a Spin Clean

By: Zod

Zod — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 18:38:36 +0000

Well you need a phone pre-amp and a home amplifier. The audio from a record player is very very quiet. Old home amplifiers (receivers) used to have phono inputs for record players. They could amplify the signal inside the receiver. They have stopped putting them on amps. Now you need to put a phono pre-amp between the record player and receiver. If you don’t the sound will barely be audible (if at all).

By: Patrick

Patrick — Sun, 23 Dec 2012 17:07:10 +0000

Love the article and website, been married over 13 years and wanted to surprise my music-loving wife with a turntable.

Took your suggestion and purchased the MMF-2.2 and got “Hotel California” and “Rubber Soul”, two of my wife’s favorites.

My problem/question is: do I need an amp or just speakers? I set the whole thing up and POW, zero sound! What was a great gift idea, she was so shocked and loved it, turned into flop.

Thanks for your input.

By: Matthew Macias

Matthew Macias — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 18:23:27 +0000

Love my turntable, I had gotten into vinyls about last year and was looking for a turntable and luckily one of my mother’s co-workers had a technics laying around and gave it to me for free the only thing it needed was a new stylus and it was ready to go. You can totally hear a difference in the music with it and sometimes the little scratches at something to it.

By: Gerald

Gerald — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 06:20:16 +0000

SL-1200 are great, but they are still overpriced, even used because all the Amateur-DJ guys want to have one. Technics made many more Direct drive Turntables for home use, with very similar technique that are way more reasonable and come mostly even with better sounding cartridges. Technics SL-1300, SL-Q2/Q3/q33 SL-D3, SL 16xx and more and more…

Other japanese makers like Micro, CEC, Hitachi, and also Sony till 1985 made many great turntables.

By: Kuby

Kuby — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 17:01:05 +0000

If you want a good first turntable buy a Technics sl 1200. Get one used off ebay or craigslist. They run around $200-300. They are not great looking but they are solid. If you end up wanting something nicer you can sell it for what you bought it for and if you don’t the 1200 will keep being awesome.

By: Gerald

Gerald — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 07:21:54 +0000

Look on the values of “Wow and flutter”, it has to be less then 0,2% to be Hifi… Others might drone hard on the inner rails…

I dont think a turntable in the 21. century that cant accord with the ancient high-fidelity DIN is acceptable.

By: Sam

Sam — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 14:22:16 +0000

Go to an older elementary school.

By: Jaison

Jaison — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 23:05:50 +0000

Does anyone know of a shop in/around Los Angeles where I can turntable browse?

By: Jaison

Jaison — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 23:04:32 +0000

Coming from a vinyl enthusiast that’s looking to invest in a turntable setup, that was a great post.

Thanks for this.