Turntable advice

@UltraShock - The upgrade bug is a dangerous one =) What are you thinking of going to from your technics 1200?

I really love the Nottingham high mass low drive concept. Something very nice about starting it and stopping it by hand also. Don't know how it performs compared to direct drive or idler.

I am very inexperienced when it comes to turntables and rely on the good advice from people here.

From my experience so far. The nottingham setup Rivals my digital system for sound staging, clarity and producing a black background (on a good disc). I find it surpasses it for tonality, especially for piano and brass. The mix just seems to sit better. No artificial hyper detail that can be distracting.

My digital system is no slouch. An Auralic Vega with a Aires front end.

Seems like for the majority of music i have purchased so far. Jazz and classical piano I much prefer the vinyl recordings to their digital counterparts. Less fatiguing....

I should caution myself though that I may be just hearing different Mastering.

Good luck with your search! Let us know what your impressions are of different rigs

-Dave

 

@Falcor I actually sold my 1200 to a friend last night. I'm not quite sure what i'm going to replace it with, but i'm very interested in getting a nice belt drive.must admit i am very tempted to get a SOTA turntable but need to look around more.

I doubt it's the mastering you're hearing. There is definitely a different quality about vinyl being reproduced rather than digital. Some things work better on certain formats than others, it's true. Try listening to some really rigid electronic music on vinyl; square waves get destroyed and rounded off a lot.

 

I think that you should definitely listen to it and see if you like the sound of your existing Audio Technica cartridge (which one is it by the way?, and which Technics TT?)

Also make sure it is set up correctly for Technics the easy way for a beginner is to adjust the cartridge (needle 52mm form edge of headshell mount) as the picture depicts

secondly make sure the needle is clean


once you have established that you like the cartridge you might want to consider an original replacement needle.

If you find the sound lacking in something you can consider to go for another cartridge altogether.

My recommendation although it is a little above your budget is the Shure M97xE. You may find it a lot cheaper than the recommended retail price if you look around. http://www.shure.com/americas/products/phono/m97xe-audiophile-phono-cartridge

A smooth very nice sounding cartridge that goes well on the Technics and can be further upgraded later if you get hooked on vinyl, by adding a Jico SAS stylus.

 

When I get home I'll take a look (if I remember) and report back.
Also, that's a lot of information that is scaring me, but I'll do my best not to get the instructions wrong and get my dick caught in something. Thanks for the advice!

 

Exciting times for you! Good luck with the search! What kind of budget are you looking at?

 

Well, I have a cartridge I'm already happy with, but it could be replaced. Anyway, I'm trying not to spend too much more than 500 at the moment. the lower the better... just figured with that kind of money i could get a belt drive with a more tonally accurate sound. the 1200 is a great sounding table but it definitely has that unmistakable slightly dark shroud to it.

I always really wanted one of those Mitsubishi tables from the 80's that stood up vertically so bad. Almost got one once but it was in miserable shape and I didn't have the knowledge or tools to fix it up right at the time. Besides, it uses a bunch of custom made IC's Mitsubishi made for themselves, so if those die there's not much hope of replacing them unless you have a lot of gutted gear from that time period...

 

Fuckety fuckmobile. After getting no sleep (due to girlfriend drama), going to school, getting to work a shift early and then getting swamped all afternoon and evening, and then getting held over an extra half hour was pretty bad. But the shit on the cake was the disentigrated belt on the turntable after I spent all sorts of time getting it set up to listen. Good thing we have a vinyl place pretty close so I can get a replacement part. DIGITAL DOESN'T HAVE THESE ANALOG PROBLEMS
I was so hyped too, pulled out the original Star Wars record (and put a big ass smudge on it with my thumb) and was so confused when the recor just.. Wasn't spinning. Feck. Bad day with a bad ending. Maybe next week, or sometime when dad isn't home, since I can't just ruin his (my) krismas present.

 

Hi guys,
I've been fishing around the local second hand TT scene, and there's a fair few Linn Sondek LP12s floating around, especially from the early/mid 80s. I'm not the most familiar with the features on those so I'd like to ask about what I should look out for in terms of value. Thanks.

 

I had an LP12 for 20 years nearly. I went through a lot of upgrades all of them had a positive impact on sound.

I guess the most "classic" version is the pre circus valhala ittok which sounds nice and musical but is definitely not the most precise in detail extraction as more modern configurations.

Not a lot of things can go bad, and they are relatively cheap to repair.

Rubbers and suspension springs should be upgraded to the newest type. The motors especially of the pre 80's decks might need changing to the latest spec AC motors (premotec).
Valhala can be a little fried over the years and can be repaired or changed to a Hercules II or the Linn lingo supplies it depends how much you want to spend.

I never gave any thoughts about the cover, but before i sold mine (stupidly) bought a new one and sold it with a brand new cover (about 190 euro at the time) lol.

You can check the age by serial number http://forums.linn.co.uk/bb/showthread.php?tid=15567 but beware sometimes a new plinth on older decks have been placed, and maybe you are getting an older deck in a newer plinth.

Post here the details of the table you are interested in and i will try to steer you in the right direction.

The most important thing though is that you have to find someone with a Sondek and give it a listen... it has a unique sound that some like a lot, and some despise, proceed only if you like what you hear. This might save you a lot of money in the end

 

Thanks Chris! I'll head down when I can to check now that I have a better idea of what to look for.

 

Hi Chris!
Thanks for the advice, I just visited the place and got a closer look at the table. The S/N is 033777, which puts it as a pre-Valhalla deck. According to the guy at the store there haven't been any upgrades fitted by the original owner, and right now its got an Ortofon cart and a Rega arm, whose value I am not too certain of. He's quoting me a price of about US$1300, which seems a bit much if I'll have to have upgrades done. What are your thoughts?

 

I think it is way too much, i would say about 600-800 tops depending on condition, would be more like it considering the age...look at ebay prices for reference.
I Wouldn't mess with pre Valhalla. Itok or later Ekos is the way to go (Akito is not bad and may beat some old and tattered Regas, I wouldn't go for Basik or Basik Plus)

 

Yeah that sounds about right, at the price he was quoting I was hoping the previous owner had sent it to Linn at some point for some retrofits. Thanks!

 

Even old LP12's still go for a pretty penny based on what I've seen. You guys notice old upgrade arms like the SME 3009 have gone through the roof in pricing lately? Pricing is all over the board these days, mostly inflated IMO.

 

Yes it is true, prices have gone up... now i remember i had an SME 3009 II, and gave it away to a friend, i didn't think of it at the time... now i wish i still had it.

It is a matter of rediscovering vintage, and this has caused a large demand, with the resulting price increase.

 

What do you guys think about the new Pro-Ject RPM 9 Carbon? The platter weighs 7.2kg (16 lbs). It looks to be pretty decent value as well..

http://www.project-audio.com/main.php?prod=rpm9carbon

 

Though I don't have direct experience with this NEW Pro-Ject RPM 9, I've used and setup an older version of this table. It is a fantastic performer! The real beauty of this setup is that arm...excellent sonic linearity top to bottom, easy to setup and very smooth action. The carbon fiber construction seems to really help the arm get out of the way and let the cartridge do it's thing. I tried 3 cartridges on this tonearm....Koetsu Rosewood Signature, Shelter 501 MKII and a Shure M97xe. The sonic personality of every cartridge came through undeterred! The richness of the Koetsu, the transient response of the Shelter and the musical personality of the the Shure was very evident.

Build quality of the table is great and the external motor is well damped and in a heavy pod. I really like this table...just soundly engineered through and through.

 

Anyone have any tube phono stage suggestions around the $1k mark?