Is getting into vinyl now a good idea?

Sid and Coke said:
Leave the ever dwindling supply of tatty old records to sad old farts like me who just can't let go of the past.
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Tom,

Don't trust Sid, he clearly has an ulterior motive ;)
 
I got my first CDP and turntable on the very same day - my 16th birthday, back in 1991! I of course had virtually NO vinyl (about 3 LPs and maybe 10 7inchers) due to my folks' turntable being crap, so I only had tape before that.

I now have almost as many LPs as CDs and LPs get bought a LOT more these days, as a good haul through MVE, Notting Hill, for example, can yield 30 LPs for around £20 second hand!

My CDP/power supply is around 3.5 times the cost of my turntable, and still sounds a lot less fun...

If you're going to go for it, a Thorens is a good start, as is a Systemdeck, BUT they don't have the advantage of the Rega Planars. ALL Rega Planars (NOT the newer P2/P3 though) have a fully transferrable lifetime guarantee, so if you get a slightly fudged deck second hand, you can have it fixed for naught. Always factor in the price of a new stylus/cartridge, and belt, into your cost.

Carboot sales can sometimes chuck up bargains too - I got a Dual 1229 (BEAST of an idler drive deck!) for £5 once - a £11 stylus and hey presto - halfway decent sound for VERY cheap money. A Dual CS505-x can go for silly low prices as well if you can find one, and they're not that bad. Certainly OK for a starter deck.

A £5.99 HMV carbon fibre brush and a £39 Knosti Disco Antistat record cleaner are good "optional" (read manditary!) extras, should you be buying lots of second hand vinyl.

BTW - warps can suck, but I have a copy of Whale's "We care" that I got for a quid in MVE last month. It has a 1.5 CM warp on it and the NAD 533/Ortofon 530 I use in the bedroom tracked it with no problems whatsoever!!!
 
domfjbrownA £5.99 HMV carbon fibre brush and a £39 Knosti Disco Antistat record cleaner are good "optional" (read manditary!) extras said:
I'll second that - the Antistat is superb at degrunging second hand vinyl. I got a job lot of classical LPs from the Emporium (£100 for 100, you get to select the composers but not cherry pick the titles - very cheap way of trying out new material) . Some looked as if they had never been played, but others were actually mouldy - even these cleaned up well.
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OK, let's just say that I am going to buy a turntable. I'm not quite ready to take that step yet, but just for the sake of argument ;)

What are the best ones to look for? A lot of people have said Rega Planar, is this the best idea? How do new ProJect TTs compare to 2nd hand Regas? Anything else I should consider?

Thanks again to all for your advice.
 
Depends on budget, really. If you're looking secondhand for a few hundred quid, the Regas are easily the best bet, as you'll be able to sell it on for the price you paid if you change your mind or decide to upgrade at a later date. They're dead easy to set up too, and Rega are a nice company to deal with in case you need repairs or replacements. Pro-jects don't hold their value so well.

-- Ian
 
I have a cheap as chips Project Xpression with an Ortofon MC15FL (£210 for the TT with basic cart, plus £150 for the Ortofon cart). Does the trick. Sounds miles better than most sub £1000 CDP's, IMHO. I used to prefer it over my old CDP, a fairly well regarded Marantz CD6000KI (the ProJect gives a better soundstage, much better timing, excellent extended treble detail), but then I recently bought the Unison Research CDP... which is now substantially better than the ProJect TT... Hmm...
 
I've got to be honest - I didn't like the sound of the Project Debut II; the Debut 1 is actually better :) Having not heard a £200+ version of the Project, I can't be sure, but if the higher end Projects sound like "more of the same but more refined" Debuts, I think I'd have to categorically state Rega, or the NAD533, even with that horrible Goldring Electra cart it comes bundled with as standard.

A Rega Planar 2 and a replacement stylus is a good place to start IMO - budget should be around £120 if you ignore Ebay.
 
Was looking through Moorgate's website and noticed they had a Planar 2 with a Goldring 1042. A cracking combination, and if I'm not mistaked you'll have a lifetime guarantee on the deck as Rega did that on there decks prior to them being P2 etc.

You'll find it here

You'll have to browse to the special offers bit, but you won't do much better than that
 

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