I've been over at my brother in law's and he has a good vynil collection and I love the sound of those records. I want to start building a little vynil collection. I've been looking at the TECHNICS SL-1200MK2. What other options are available within the same price range, any reccomendations?

Thanks!

You should look at the Rega line at the low end (P1), as they make excellent turntables.

In fact, Linn used to recommend the Rega's to those people who could not/would not spend for a Linn LP12

I was going thru my Oldies.com CD catalog the other day, and in the back, they listed quite a few turntables. They carry Thorens, and Audio-Technica.
When I saw how many they are offering, and how expensive some were, it tells me Vinyl is making much more of a come-back than I had thought.

Mistico, check out Music Direct at http://www.musicdirect.com/ and of course, Jeremy Raskin, the Needle Doctor.

Rega makes an excellent entry level turntable (they also build some of the best arms out there), and Music Direct's MMF series tables are wonderful. I have my eye on a Funk Vector table. Technics makes wonderful and bullet proof turn tables as well.

There are turn table/cartridge combos out there that go for more than $100,000. Ruling class sure does love its state of the art sound reproduction toys.

Thanks for the suggestions. The Rega P1 looks very nice and is priced in line with what I want to spend. The Funk Vector is pretty cool. I would like something like that but probably once I'm past being a vinyl newbie.

The Rega P1 looks like the ticket right now.

Thanks!

Rega is a good choice.

Enjoy!

How's Music Hall?

I almost went that way when I bought my Technics....

Music Hall is a decent turntable, it's pretty much a clone of a Pro-Ject table.

I would skip all those budget belt drives and go with the Technics. It's a much better built table than the others. The SL-1200MK2 is a piece of equipment that will last a life time.

Hi,

Pro-ject, Music Hall and Rega are all very good belt-drive turntables.

As someone else pointed out, the Technics 1200 is a direct drive and will go on forever. The downside is that it has a slightly clunky, more "massy" tonearm, compared to the more refined tonearms of the Rega, Pro-ject and Music Hall.

The Technics has inherently superb speed accuracy and zero audible rumble with adjustable speed. Belt drives sometimes have some speed error but not enough to worry about.

Sometimes the supplied moving-magnet cartridges are only so-so. You might want to upgrade.

Regards,

Alan

Mistico,

About the supplied MM cartridges--they are often Ortofon, a German brand that is just so-so, in my experience.

If you want to upgrade the moving-magnet cartridge, consider three American brands that are very good trackers and reasonably priced: Grado, Shure or Stanton.

Any model up to about $100 would deliver much better performance than the Ortofons, and would also be fine in the Technics tonearm if you decided to go with that model.

Regards,
Alan