Originally Posted by
DSJR
So many old *cheap* turntables available and most of them are cack, frankly (opinion and experience)! My favourite idler driven Duals all need servicing and prices are climbing now and even the later popular 505's can need work to bring them up to snuff. The 505's in wooden plinths (Audiophile Concept) always sounded better for the more solid plinths and the Ortofons they came with are fine with say, an OM10 or OM20 stylus. Pitch and drive belts can be easily obtained I think.
Second hand Regas cost loads now, but are very simple with cheap spares, far better made with superior engineering in my experience, than cheaper Pro-jects and imo sound better too! (why they cost loads!). The Pro-ject Debut sold very well though, but may need a new belt and mat.
Some of the old techie models can work very well. I seem to remember SLB2's and 3's and so on (SLD2's and 3's too) being sonically ok if properly sited. I don't know the equivalent Sony's I'm afraid.
Next level up means a couple of hundred as a minimum now. Thorens 150's are suddenly more desirable and the Td160 is finally being regarded as a more serious model. As long as these haven't had total numpties messing with the suspension, they're very good and usually stay set up once correctly set.
Over this price the market is wide open for so many great used options, but I HAVE to give yet another shout for the excellent Rega Planar 1 at £250 or so. They make many hundreds a month apparently for a worldwide market, so they can afford really nice plinths and covers, the motor is now a 24V type and the tonearm, despite being the most 'basic' model, actually performs better I think than the original RB250 did. The AT91 based 'Carbon' cartridge is also surprisingly good and plays to its strengths well, never showing it's low cost unless directly compared with something good at a ton or more...
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