Turntables?

[Squealbot]

Lately I've had the hankering to buy vinyl records again, but my old record player died about a year ago.  Can anyone recommend any good websites or stores that sell turntables for reasonable prices?  I've already thrown out the speakers (they were at least twenty years old and sounded terrible), so I guess I'm also browsing around for a package deal.

I thought about Best Buy at first, but if you have any better ideas hit me up.

[diesel_powered]

eBay. And garage sales. And get Technics. I've had Technics turntables my whole life and they've never done me wrong.

That's my best bet.

If you want to spend some cash, www.needledoctor.com are my hometown heroes, but they aren't really competitive, price-wise.

[heather marie]

keep an eye on the circuit city website. i got a basic Audio Technica there months ago for about $60/on sale (regular $90, i think). it's what my dad has always had, so when the one that came with my aiwa stereo that i've had forever died, i got it. i'm obviously not an audiophile but it's cheap and works fine.

[slamclicker]

get one of these:

http://www.music123.com/Numark-PT01-Portable-Turntable-i133017.music

they're awesome

[Maaik]

get one of these:

http://www.music123.com/Numark-PT01-Portable-Turntable-i133017.music

they're awesome

God I want one of those.  Or one of these:


I really could have used one on my last trip up to North Carolina.

[rockmeamadeus]

The Vestax is, indeed, awesome, but I'm with Diesel on this... Technics are the fucking BOMBASS. I have a tower system with a 5-disc changer and tape deck and phonograph, all that hullaballoo, from 1989. STILL WORKS LIKE THE DAY IT WAS BOUGHT. Never once had to replace a thing, save the needle.

[alexandra]

i have a Garrard. it's awesome, but getting the right parts for it is like pulling out my own teeth.

[Squealbot]

get one of these:

http://www.music123.com/Numark-PT01-Portable-Turntable-i133017.music

they're awesome

God I want one of those.  Or one of these:


I really could have used one on my last trip up to North Carolina.

Damn, that looks nifty!

[Squealbot]

The Vestax is, indeed, awesome, but I'm with Diesel on this... Technics are the fucking BOMBASS. I have a tower system with a 5-disc changer and tape deck and phonograph, all that hullaballoo, from 1989. STILL WORKS LIKE THE DAY IT WAS BOUGHT. Never once had to replace a thing, save the needle.

1989?  I guess I'm going to have to make Technics one of my priorities.

The old turntable I used to have was inherited from my parents, so therefore, I was too lazy to research brand names that much.  Everybody's helping rectify that, though.

[ecoulage]

for when you're rich: http://www.elpj.com/

that being said, i have a technics myself, and yes, truly.  bombass

[cold before sunrise]

ordered this, yesterday:

[Maaik]

The Vestax is, indeed, awesome, but I'm with Diesel on this... Technics are the fucking BOMBASS. I have a tower system with a 5-disc changer and tape deck and phonograph, all that hullaballoo, from 1989. STILL WORKS LIKE THE DAY IT WAS BOUGHT. Never once had to replace a thing, save the needle.

I just wanted to interject here, for no real reason, that I hate disc changers with a burning like a thousand suns.  HATE THEM.

Okay, that's all.

[cold before sunrise]

my technics system was preadolescent, only about fourteen, when her 5-disc changer got a little skip happy and started making chewing noises like something trying to eat it's way out. the tape-to-tape component is still perfect and i'm going to try and use the amp with that deck that's on it's way. what i really need to look into is a new thound thythtem.

[Andrew_TSKS]

myke, what's your beef with disc changers?

[rockmeamadeus]

Yeah, really... I have had some gnarly disc changers but mine is a DOLL. 17 years olf, man. 17!!! It's older than jordanmichael!!! And it plays like a charm!

[andronicus]

I feel meighk on the disc changer hating; I have one that isn't like a tray, it somehow EATS the disc and only spits out one at a time if that makes any sense.  Meanwhile I have to GUESS which slot a particular CD is in, and my memory for things like that is horrible.

[Maaik]

I just don't feel it's at all necessary and I've never encountered one that worked at all properly.  My brother has a three disc changer.  There are three eject buttons, so you hit "Open Tray Three" and you expect to get Disk Three.  Simple, right?  It doesn't work like that.  You hit button three and you hear grinding and wailing of souls and maybe a minute later, you get disk one ejected for you.

All I fucking want is a simple, top-loading CD player.  I can fucking live with that.

[alex]

Yeah, I'm kind of suspicious of cd changers as well, although lately I've been wishing I had one (provided it works better than Maaik's brother's, of course) as well - it would be really neat sometimes to be able to listen to something else than whatever I listened to while going to sleep the previous night when lying in bed in the morning. Climbing down the ladder, changing the CD, then climbing up the ladder to my bed is kind of annoying, while trying to wake up to Spokane is kind of counterproductive.

As for record players, I have this old JVC thingy which I inherited from my uncle (by way of my aunt and my parents' cellar) a few years ago. It's probably from the early 80s or something, quite possibly older than I am, and works pretty well.

[diesel_powered]

I have a 110 disc changer that I never use. It generally works great because it's one of the Technics ones that have all the CDs arranged in a simple line so it's easy to keep track of what you have and where you put it. I bought it when I was 17 and worked at Best Buy because I thought that 110 discs was large enough to hold my entire CD collection. Unfortunately, even then it was about two thirds too small to hold all my CDs.

That being said, I never use it. If I play CDs on a stereo, I play them through my nice, simple, single disc DVD player. But most of the time I just use iTunes. iTunes has replaced the CD changer as far as I'm concerned.

I really ought to sell that thing on Ebay. I even have the packaging for it.

[FreddyKnuckles]

I have a quality, good working 5 disc jvc

The only thing that's weird is that when the disc tray thinger comes out, you have to push 'disc skip' to get it to rotate so you can get the discs in the back.

[paper headphones]

I've been having a problem with my record player recently, but I'm not exactly sure how to explain the issue, but here goes:

A few weeks back I was playing a record at the correct 33 RPMs, only to notice that the vocals were slowed down just a tiny bit, enough to be noticeable as I'd owned a cd copy of the record in the past, yet the music was sounding just fine. I thought it was an issue with the vinyl, but when I took it back to the store, it played just fine on theirs. Now I've been noticing the same issue with records that played just fine around the same time.

Is this fixable? The player in question is pretty old, so I have a feeling it's just the age catching up to it.

[heather marie]

I feel meighk on the disc changer hating; I have one that isn't like a tray, it somehow EATS the disc and only spits out one at a time if that makes any sense.  Meanwhile I have to GUESS which slot a particular CD is in, and my memory for things like that is horrible.

my old one was like that, where the discs were all at an angle. one of my favorite cd's got stuck inside so i had to buy another. but i got a new one that is a 5-disc, but it has 5 separate disc loader things. yeah, i'm fuckin' eloquent when it comes to talking electronics. i'd never be able to work at best buy because i'd be like "oh, yeah, so the disc change thingy is like, wonky & shit."

[SPACERACE]

I've been having a problem with my record player recently, but I'm not exactly sure how to explain the issue, but here goes:

A few weeks back I was playing a record at the correct 33 RPMs, only to notice that the vocals were slowed down just a tiny bit, enough to be noticeable as I'd owned a cd copy of the record in the past, yet the music was sounding just fine. I thought it was an issue with the vinyl, but when I took it back to the store, it played just fine on theirs. Now I've been noticing the same issue with records that played just fine around the same time.

Is this fixable? The player in question is pretty old, so I have a feeling it's just the age catching up to it.

motor's shitting the bed. you could see if there's any place around there that could replace it.

[diesel_powered]

Maybe a new belt?

[paper headphones]

How much would a motor replacement/new belt run?