I finally broke down and bought a set of the M80's and an outlaw 2150 for my living room. Got tired of the basement for all my listening. Most of music will be played off a NAS in lossless digital format, but I'm interested in getting a record player and maybe buying a few albums in Vinyl to compare.

Since everything in audio seems to matter, are there any rules of thumb to follow when shopping for a player? Is everything built now a days pretty much the same? Should I look for something older?

There's always the 'next' thing in this hobby, I swear.

-Nick

Funny, I read a post about this over at audioholics today. Apparently some of the older Japanese turntables are much better than the new stuff you can buy today. The guy who had initiated the thread had just bought a tt with a strait arm that was meant for djing. Not good for vinyl!

I found that thread over there and did a little looking. A good start to my research...

-Nick

J&R is having a sale on vinyl. Pretty good prices, nice selection.

There's a lot of nice classic turntables on sale on ebay at Ebay Vintage Turntables .
Names like Thorens, Dual, Technics, Yamaha, Marantz, Sansui, etc, and a good stylus like Shure's classic type V-15 series and you'll be playing your vinyl in classic lp style and your albums will be very happy.
When your interested in a certain turntable, take it's name and model type and do a Google to get some further opions a prices. Care and condition is very important. Good luck.

You can also start w/ audiogon and Craigslist. I found a decent one on CL for $25 and it sounded great w/ a new Ortofon cart. I upgraded to a Project and I'm happy. However, I find that I mostly use my Ah! Njoe tube CD player more often.

I did some rummaging around ebay and found a Yamaha YP-B2 that appears to be in very good condition. I'm not a handy man or anything so if I'm going to buy an older player I'd like one that's supposed to have been worked on and appears to be in good shape.

Not sure if they're asking too much for it, so I'll keep digging around the net for info.

The rest of the gear will be here when I get home on Wednesday so I'll have to deal with 'just' CD's...or actually, ripped lossless...music for the time being

Thanks for the Vinyl sale link. Tempting way to get started.

-Nick

I bought a lot of my vinyl at a store that sold used vinyl. That and at garage sales and flea markets. There's some pretty good deals if you hunt for them.

I guess it depends on your budget for TT and media.

As most have said, vinyl and equipment is somewhat easy to find - garage sales, flea markets, and even in most retail music stores for new.

If you are looking for a new TT, Rega desings a few models that are badged Goldring, and are decent pieces at decent prices - at least to my budget. Check out Audiophile Boutique online for a couple of these models

Try a little of this with your vinyl.