Hi Alan,
You may have saved me a bit of money with this thread. I picked up a Japanese direct drive turntable in perfect shape at a garage sale last summer for $20. It had an old Ortofon cartridge in it and sounded OK but it certainly wasn't much much competition for my old Sansui CD player. After I picked up my M3s I started listening again to everything I could get my hands on including all the old records. I upgraded to a new Ortofon OMB 10 and my opinion of vinyl changed in a second. Records in good shape suddenly sounded better than the CD player. The soundstage was wider, and for whatever reason music seemed to be more fun to listen to. My wife used to work for Capitol Records and she had a bunch of sealed Beatle albums. After we found out that they weren't worth a Zillion dollars, we opened some up and put them on. These songs are ingrained in the fabric of our lives, but it was as if we were really hearing them for the very first time. John Lennon sounded so alive in our room that it brought tears to our eyes. I was hooked. I started reading everything I could about turntables with the idea of moving up to something like a Rega, Pro-ject, or a used Ariston or Thorens. Everything I have read says that belt drive is the way to go and that the direct drive units channel motor noise through the platter. I have to admit that I am pretty sceptical about some of the claims made for most high-end turntables and arms. You hear the same sort of nebulous language that is present in expensive interconnect and wiring advertising. I can see a cartridge making a fairly audible difference in sound quality, but I have a great deal of trouble believing that different tonearms, if set up correctly in the first place, are going to make enough of a difference to justify spending as much on them as you would on a small car. Unfortunately I can't audition any turntables at home, so... I guess my question is: should I be happy with my good sounding but unimpressively named turntable, or should I keep looking to upgrade to one of the better-known companies out there? Also, at what price point do you stop paying for sound and start paying for snob appeal? Thanks
BTW - after hearing how poorly my old CD player sounded I borrowed a new one from a friend. The difference was astonishing.
