Entry-level Turntable Decision

[richteer]

Originally Posted by kefrank

Thanks for your input, richteer. My budget is not very flexible. $450 is pretty much the max.

Fair enough. In that case, the Music Hall is probably your best bet.

I'm not a hugely critical listener, but I also recognize that anything less than these options is not even worth considering. The Technics is on my list because a number of audiophiles at vinylengine believe strongly in it (most of them do mod it though) and it received a solid review on Audiogon as an audiophile table a few years ago. I think it often gets automatically dismissed because it isn't a belt-drive.

There's nothing wrong with non belt driven turntables per se, in fact many of the top rated turntable aren't belt driven. Examples that come to mind are The Rockport Sirius System III, various Clearaudios, and a few others.

The reason why we audiophiles don't think much of the Technics deck is because of it lack of sound quality. If you want a robust deck that can take abuse from DJing, yeah the SL-1200 is probably your best choice. But if want to set up a turntable in your home to listen to records, there are MANY other, better choices.

To each their own, but I know how high my standards are, and if I were starting again in your budget range, I wouldn't even begin to consider the SL-1200.

Anyway, I'm very intrigued by the MMF-2.2, because I think it's basically a Pro-ject Debut III with a better platter (coated alloy), better tonearm, and with the ability to adjust VTA.

For the record, I'll be using a Moving Magnet cartridge: either the Audio Technica AT120E/T that is on my current table or the cart that comes with these tables, whichever sounds better to my ears.

If you go with the Ortofon cartridges that those 'tables come with, you can upgrade them fairly cheaply by replacing the stylus. I think the 'tables come with the OM-5, which can be upgraded to an OM-20 just by changing the stylus. I'm a big fan of Moving Coil cartrdiges, but I appreciate that at this level they probably bring too many problems to the table (most notably that of low output levels).