Records and my Outlaw 1050

What's your associated equipment and budget? Recommended components, roughly in increasing price:

* $25 Radio Shack battery powered phono stage. Some people say this is better than a $120 NAD phono preamp. In any case, I've used this, and it's pretty good, and for $25 it's amazing. Put in another $25 for a pair of NiMH 9V batteries and a charger, and you're set. Search for "Little Rat" on this forum or on Audio Asylum, you'll see plenty of discussion. Only downside - low gain, so you'll have to turn the volume up when compared to CDs.

* J&R sells the QED Discwasher, also known as the Music Hall MMF-something, I think that's around $60 - $80. That's battery powered too, so no 60Hz hum, and I've heard good things about it. No personal experience.

* Moving up, the NAD PP-1 (mentioned above), and units from Rotel and Creek come in at the $200 range, probably less on the used market.

I doubt you want anything more expensive, right? If you're DIY inclined, there are several circuits available for free on the net. Parts would cost you around $50 - $75, depending on what you want to do. You can build this on a breadboard, so you don't need to know much soldering (you'd have to solder the RCAs and so on). The one I built cost me around $50, and sounds quite a bit better than the Little Rat.

And all this assumes you have a Moving Magnet cartridge. If you have a Moving Coil, that requires much more gain, so things become a little more complicated.

 

John, great to hear you enjoy vinyl. Saurav gave you some phono stages to check out already. You might want to search the Vinyl asylum over at www.audioasylum.com for lots of info on inexpensive solutions. Once you hear vinyl on a decent rig, you're hooked!
BTW, I picked up Led Zep II, III a couple of months ago.
They are Classic Records re-issues, they sound incredible.
The CD's do not do justice to their material, IMO. Enjoy your new found source, it's a lot of fun.

 

Check out Acousticsounds.com they regularly reissue lp's on 180gm vinyl I just ordered some reissued CCR

 

Darn you people and your records. I'm trying to get around to eventually getting rid of all my albums (I only have like 20 or 30) and now you've convinced me to hook up my record player and actually listen to them again. Argh!! If they sound good and I start getting crazy ideas of ordering records or shopping the used record stores for "albums" then its all your fault!

 

Too late. After I listen to them I'll want to keep them Actually may not keep them afterall. I'll see once I listen to them on my soso Technics SL-BD22 turntable with soso cartridge. I doubt they're in great shape anyways

 

I have a Dual 1257 with an Acutex cartridge sitting in my basement. I have not used it in a while but it always tracked and sounded fine when I did. If anyone would be interested in it I would probably part with it for a fair price. It should be in excellent shape.
I found this on the net, check it out.
http://www.compassnet.com/concept/tables/1257.htm

 

Sony has a $99 turntable with built-in phono stage. Check Crutchfield.

 

Hmmm, I guess my turntables ain't so bad after all. Someone is selling one on ebay for frickin $134.00 USD! Wow. I should clean mine up and give it another listen

 

Chris,

The Technics turntable you mentioned is actual not bad; I have the SL-BD20 with one of Grado "color" cartridges and the combination sounds great. Now I wonder whether Radio Shack's phono pre-amp will improve upon the phono section in my Onkyo stereo receiver.