What should I look for in buying a turntable?

Question

I'm shopping for my first turntable so I can listen to vinyls but I'm thoroughly confused about these manual - semi-automatic - automatic, belt driven? Also, where can someone shop for some vintage records?

Answer 1

Manual: You have to manually place the needle on the record at the start of play, then manually lift the tonearm and return it to its home position at the end of play. Otherwise it will sit there and spin forever on the innermost grrove, damaging the needle.

Semiautomatic (or auto return): Same as above, but at the end of play, the tonearm automatically returns home by itself. This is very desirable.

Fully automatic: Both the start and the finish are done automatically. This is not as good as it sounds, because if not adjusted well, the placement of the needle can be too hard, damaging the needle, or it can be off, missing the start of the first song. Best is semi-automatic.

Belt drive: The motor is connected to the platter (the spinning plate that holds the record) with a rubber belt. The other common system is direct drive, where gears are used instead of belt. For a basic system, go with direct drive. First you don't have to worry about the belt stretching or breaking, and it's easier to use at the beginning of play. With direct drive, you hold the platter still while you place the needle, and then release. With belt drive, the platter spins while you drop the needle, and that's hard to do.

In summary, get a direct-drive semi-automatic. As the above poster said, Technics is a good brand. They start at around $150 on amazon and go up from there.

You can also play vinyl and go digital at the same time, by getting a digital turntable. Basically it plays records just like a regular turntable, but it also has a digital output signal that you can transfer into a computer and save as an MP3 file (or other digital format). Just search for "digital turntable" on amazon and you will find. I've been thinking of getting one but haven't gotten around to it yet.

Answer 2

Hi Belt drive Turntables are the most popular in high fidelity systems .Direct Drive is also popular but having the motor close where the cartridge is could pickup interference from the motor.With belt drive the motor is furthur away from the Tonearm. Speed accuracy is very important.Accuracy of 0.3% is a good margin.Most high quality Turntables will beat this figure Nealy all Turntables are fitted with a manual Tonearm.The Tonearm should have low inertia and low pivot
friction,so it can trace the record groove accurately Some arms already have a Cartridge fitted.

The best Turntables for the money are made by Pro-Ject .
I have a Pro-Ject Turntable which has never given me any trouble.
Here is a link showing various models and prices.

http://www.google.com/products?hl=en&q=pro-ject+turntables&um=1&ie=UTF-8


There are thousands of vintage records on ebay .Many are still sealed.Ihave bought about 30 records and they all play very well.

Answer 3

Direct drive.
Thecnnics are very good one´s