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.

Just an update - the Outlaw RR2150, M80's, speaker wire, and USB cable have appeared and been hooked up. Sadly it was the cable that took longest - 7 days from Monoprice. Seems like UPS made a fine mess of it, claiming weather. Even though the rest of the gear came 2+ days earlier ordered the same day.

Anyway, it all sounds great. The 80's definitely sound deeper than my 60's, or they do paired with the RR2150. The highs seem more exposed for lack of a better word. I'm not sure if it's the acoustics of the room but I feel like the middle is a little lost right now. I may have to fiddle a bit. There's of course plenty of chance to play now - upstairs, downstairs, both receivers, analog versus the current USB connectivity, windows kernel streaming with foobar, etc. The 80's in the Mansfield Beech look great.

Keep us updated, and your term for the highs is pretty accurate.

Pics required Congrats on the new system.

I'm starting to wonder if the difference was Itunes in osx. I switched things over to windows & foobar (which I run in the basement) and the middle seems to have reappeared. From all the research, there seems to be varying opinion on how much itunes is affecting audio, but it the difference seems audible here.

Funny, I had visions of switching to itunes because it was "easier", but the reality is it's almost more of a pain in the a**. With foobar I'm 2-3 clicks away from playing anything. Not as pretty, but I guess I've been using it long enough to be used to it now.

-Nick

buy the new Technics MK2 turntable, its a dj turntable, but h as a great audiophile tonerm, dr=irect drive, als weighs about 30 pounds, and is reliable for about 20 years at least, i have had mone for 11 years now, and NOT ONE PROBLEM!!! its the best out these. but no automatic return its all manual. and i use an ortofon x5-mc cart for amost everything, i use the oprtofon nightclub e for my metal lps as it has a 7 for the output and the bass and EVERYTHING is loud and tight, what a sound from vinyl, plays better than about al;l my cds!!! there is no sub for vinyl, the warmth, airy-ness, mood it creates is astounding, especially older metal, it is just the law