A turntable, finally?

[Diapason]

I'm in an unusual situation: my wife thinks we should buy a turntable and is trying to encourage me to get one for the sitting room. We were at a friend's place for the weekend, spent most evenings listening to old records while chatting, and now she's hooked.

The main stumbling block here is that we don't have a record collection (it's about 5 LPs tops), so it all feels a bit pointless to me. Now that vinyl is "back", the days of picking up a pile of old records for nothing seems to be gone, and I'm reluctant to spend serious money building from scratch. Frankly, I'm not sure that it would actually get much use either. Simply put, I don't think we need a TT.

On the plus side, I have an amp with a phono stage and turntables look cool and will give me much more audiophile cred so there's that. I had a Project debut before and thought it was, well, disappointing. It was easily and cheerfully beaten sonically by a Marantz CD52 mk II, so If I'm getting anything it will need to be up the curve a bit without going too mad because I have nothing worthwhile to play on it.

Talk me out of this nonsense, will you?

[DaveF]

I think your wife should take over control of your hifi system from here on in!

As mentioned to you elsewhere once I get the motor on my Clearaudio Performance serviced, it might be up for sale. You're welcome to borrow it anytime.
Like any turntable be it entry level or state of the art, great care must be taken to set it up correctly initially. The above is pretty much fit and forget after initial setup.

[Diapason]

Haha, I'll tell her you said that!

I'm guessing your TT will be a bit too rich for my blood here but let's see when the time comes. By then I'll probably have talked myself up to a master reference...

[DaveF]

There is a Clearaudio Reference of some sort in Cloney's for a special sale price of around 6K. Down from its original 12k. Terrific value and would look great in your sitting room.

I actually heard it last week in the shop. Sounded really nice.

[Diapason]

I already pointed that out at home...

[Ivor]

There is a Clearaudio Reference of some sort in Cloney's for a special sale price of around 6K. Down from its original 12k.

It's sold. He who hesitates....

[Diapason]

Is that you telling us something, Ivor?

[Ivor]

Is that you telling us something, Ivor?

I'm the least likely to spread information, and certainly not wisdom.

[hudo]

In your Project Debut, did you replace the catridge? The ones that comes bundled with the turntable are usually really low end.
But, think you shouldn't compare it with digital side of the system, vinyl will always be somewhat inferior (distortion, noise floor, stereo separation, etc), unless you go really expensive, but for your 5 LPs that really doesn't make sense.
I would recommend going with some decent up to 300-500€ turntable, but replace the catridge, and try to enjoy that. Only then go for upgrades, but don't try to match digitial side, that's really hard these days when you can buy awesome DAC for few hundred €. If you give up of vinyl at the end, you can sell it and you'll not lose much.

[Ivor]

...you shouldn't compare it with digital side of the system, vinyl will always be somewhat inferior (distortion, noise floor, stereo separation, etc)

Ah... no.