What turntable do you use and why ?

[Vinyl-ant]

I had my mayware on my lenco conversion, with an at150sa in it. Get the right cart in one and its lovely, get the wrong cart and its decidedly not lovely.
I put my eroica L in it and it was bloody awful.

Mine is now back on my jbe as I got hold of a very lovely at1100 for the lenco.

Mine has been extended as far as it will go, with the arm tube in line with the inner wall of the bearing housing, the front of the headshell where the arm tube goes in is in line with the front edge of the tube. This allows it to be set at 222mm from the spindle, dropped into a cutout originally specced for a rega arm. The cart is skewed very slightly in the headshell so it lines up perfectly on the Stevenston null points.

Dont forget to set the bearing spike so that the point lines up with the groove in the top acrylic dome for the bias line, otherwise the bias will pull it out of line and cock up the azimuth.

Ive had 3 of these arms, one was a sonus badged one that had a kink in the arm tube so that the cart was higher up and the stylus closer to the pivot height. That one was a complete twat to set up as it put the centre of gravity higher up and made it unstable.

Im actually using 2 turntables at the moment, the lenco/at1100/at150sa for me, and the jvc ql-y5f for the wife. The reason that I set both up at the beginning of the year, was the lenco for someone to listen to, and the jvc because my wife decided she wanted to use it because its fully automatic. She won't use the other decks at all.

She uses the jvc constantly, literally every day for a few hours. When i get the chance to use the lenco I do, but she kind of hogs the music these days......

[Thermionic Idler]

I have the first 'solid chassis' Garrard 301 made by Ray Clark of Classic Turntable Company, I think I got it in 2010. In 2012 it was upgraded with the solid brass platter and new grease bearing, and set into an SMD Reference plinth developed by Shaun Daniels of Peak HiFi. It's powered by a Loricraft power supply.

Pickup arm is a 12" Audio Origami PU7 and more recently I sold off some stuff and got a Van Den Hul Black Beauty cartridge. This front end is finished now, it doesn't need any more changes or upgrades. Even if money were no object I don't think I'd want to change anything. It tracks everything faultlessly, has no rumble or colouration, but loses none of the unique musical heart that only idler-drive decks seem to possess - at least to these ears.

In 2013 I was chatting online with a very nice woman who happened to see a picture of the deck in my profile (same pic you see in my avatar there). She said "I envy your turntable". I thought, wow, no other woman has ever commented favourably on pictures of my hifi equipment, maybe I should marry her. Yesterday was our fourth wedding anniversary.

[Chunk McDaniel]

Nice story and a beautiful turntable. Good on you bud.

[Chopsaw54]

Thank you for the info Ant. I often wondered if any were made to mount at 222mm.

Nice turntable Thermionic. I've just recently put my friends 401 in a birch ply plinth and mounted a 12" PU7 to keep it company. Cartridge is a Denon DL S1. It's an early 401 where you need to press on the speed trim knob to light up the strobe. All original and sounds very impressive.

[wiicrackpot]

Thermionic,lovely turntable and great story, ''found love in a strangest place'' indeed.

Pssst...has she an older sister?, here's a 55yr old surrounded by bicycles and hifi looking for a like minded lass.

[montechristo358]

Technics 1210 M5G

I'm a fan of the build quality the DD and the number of mods suit my need to tinker

[Leadhead]

http://tinypic.com/usermedia.php?uo=NuV ... h4l5k2TGxc

This one! Took many iterations to get to this, from big oil bath bearings to this current, opposing magnet set up. Made the plinth at home and all the machined parts at work. Couple of the main issues was getting the clearance in the bearing right and the distance between the magnets right for the weight of the platter. My dad has the prototype and seems very happy with it.

[kellerist]

I hope it’s the right place to ask. I never had a turntable, I don’t know anybody who uses one. Could you please recommend me a turntable setup that I could buy for sensible money (of course used is absolutely acceptable), is able to show me why I should have a turntable, and if it’s not my cup of tee I will be able to sell with the less possible loss? I appreciate your recommendations!

[Hannes-Gregor]

I bought the Pioneer PL-71 from Alfi and I'm happy with it. Sometimes one pops up at https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de. Much more cheap, but very good, too, is a Pioneer PL-600. Or look, if you can find a Kenwood KD-550. A budged option from Kenwood would be the KD-3070. These are all direct drive tables. As belt driven table I could recommend a Pioneer SPL-40. I had one and now passed it to my daughter. Cheaper and better and less complicated in maintenance than the Thorens TD-126 I had. With a Thorens you always have to adjust something and the speed still isn't stable.

[CN211276]

Unless you already have a good collection of vinyl i do not see the point of going down that road on grounds of cost. Decent turn tables, arms, cartridges and Phono stages are not cheap. New vinyl can cost as much as £30 and second hand prices have increased.