My first record was the 45 YMCA by the Village People in 1977; I was 7 years old.
The first thing you need to decide on a turntable is wether to go direct drive or belt drive. Direct drive is usually for DJ's and rap artists (Technics 1200 is one of the most popular). This allows the user to rotate the plater forwards and backwards by hand and que up a song very easily. Most audiofiles will tell you that a belt dirve is better, because the vibration from the motor will be absorbed by the belt. Vibration is a vinyl killer. As others have mentioned here it is vital to isolate the turntable from vibration, including the bass from you speakers and subwoofer. This is not an easy thing to do. As you turn the volume up that vibration will want to seep in.
I own a Thorens turntable with a Stanton EEE cartridge. I have about 100 albums and I play them about 3 times a year. I find the sound isn't better or worse, just different. Vinyl doesn't have the frequency response or dynamic range of digital, and you will find it is a bit noisy, not to mention the odd pop, very annoying during quiet passages.
The real advantage of vinyl is that it can force you to listen to the entire album. Lets say you want to hear tracks one, three and five on side one. As with a TT there is no skip button, you usually end up llist all the tracks on the album. This is going back to a time when most artists knew this and made the entire album worth listening too. Unlike today where most of the album is filler (only my opinion, feel free to dissagree). I seldom listen to an entire album when using digital, it's too tempting to hit the skip button on the remote.
I would highly doubt that any vinyl system, at any price will compete with a good SACD or DVD Audio. Vinyl takes up more than 4 times the space than digital, you have to be oh so careful with vinyl, one scratch, and ouch, you can't play them in your car or take them with you jogging. And here is something to think about. Vinyl wears. There is physical contact between the stylus and the record. Your album will sound best the first time you play it, and it's all down hill from there. Digital will sound the same no matter how many times you play it.
I have been hooked on CD since 1985, and yes back then it wasn't as musical and was a little harsher than vinyl, but I really enjoyed the lack of noise, snaps and pops, and simple convience of the new media.
I have never had the heart to sell my TT and vinyl collection, however it's one of the best dust collectors in my house.
pn
