My great uncle recently passed away and I inherited eight boxes of records. I still haven't opened them to go through them, although I believe they're mostly 33rpm LPs. I need to buy a turntable suitable for hooking up to my computer (via an offboard USB soundcard), so I can play them in and digitize them.

Questions for the group:

- Any recommendations on record players? Portability doesn't matter. I have a cheapo Radio Shack mixer which can (I think) deal with the lower line level put out by record players, although it seems you can buy 'pre-amps' for around $100 . Mainly, I want to spend enough money to get something that works but I don't want to get into esoteric audiophile crud.

- I may also have an opportunity to pick up a bunch of old 78's. Never mind that most record players can't spin that fast. Assuming I could hack the gearing to make it go faster, would I need a new cartridge and/or needle as well? What does it take to play a 78rpm record properly?

I've been digging around the net. The audiophile crowd will happily charge you multiple thousands of dollars for turntables. This seems to get you a belt-drive mechanism. It seems that common features among audiophile players are very heavy platters combined with some kind of locking mechanism to hold the record down and maybe even compensate for record warping. It's unclear whether you get support for 78's, although Shure seems to make a cartridge specifically for 78rpm records that you could (maybe?) put on any record player. Poking around on eBay, I've found a number of 1970's-era players that support 78rpm play, although I'm suspicious of how much work I'd have to do to restore one of these things.

Pro DJ gear, on the other hand, tends to have direct drive rather than belt-drive motors. "Expensive" means $300, which tends to get you 78rpm support from some vendors. These vendors seem to like emphasizing how fast they can stop and restart the motor. Nice, but not interesting to me. Denon and Stanton even toss in a digitizer and give you S/PDIF digital output right from the record player. Heaven only knows if it's got decent quality A/D conversion and if it works with the huge variety of cartridges out there, but it could make life a lot easier for me when my goal is to get bits into the computer to burn out to CDs.

If I really do go the used eBay route, part of me is tempted to get an old "transcription" player that can deal with the larger disks used in studios for recording session "safeties" as well as radio transcriptions (assuming I can ever find such disks). Here are some relevant eBay auctions: a Garrard, a monstrous Fairchild, a BSR, a Metzner Starlight, or another monster RCA. I think the Metzner looks new enough that you could probably put a new stylus on it. But, I'm nervous since I don't know squat about the guts of record players.

Also, for what it's worth, here's an audiophile-biased FAQ which ain't bad at all.

Thoughts? Experience? War stories?

although it seems you can buy 'pre-amps' for around $100 .

Well, $49.99 according to Ricefield. Too bad it's out of stock.

I'd buy an SL-1210, the resale value is fairly good if you get tired of it. I know I've had a lot of trouble getting hold of a pair of decent second hand ones for the radio station.

I'm sure the golden eared audiophiles will thumb their noses at it, but with a good cartridge I'm sure you'll get perfectly acceptable results.

Well, a phono pre-amp has to do two things: bring the line level up and do the RIAA equalization thing. You can spend arbitrary dollars on fancy pre-amps, although various reviews I've read seem to like the ~$100 NAD PP-1.

When I was still DJ'ing, I used to transer a lot op LP's to CD. I did this with my Technics SL-1210MK2's.

I've used both Ortofon Concorde and Stanton Trackmaster II SK cartridges. Though the Stantons were rated as being of better quality, I prefered the Concordes because they just sounded better to me. The Stantons tended to also enhance the "ticks and cracks" in the LP, which I then had to filter out then manually. (very easy to do with Cooledit). The Concordes also did this (hey, it's vinyl after all), but to a much lesser degree.

Of course, this won't help you with your 78 RPM records, but I can't help you there ; I've never handled those myself.

Just remember that the most expensive cartridge is not necessarily the best choice.

Hope this helps.

The Technics are awesome, but I don't think you need those for what you're doing.

I bought a Numark TT1520 turntable and i'm very happy with it. Its a direct drive unit and I havn't had any problems with it since day one. I bought it for the same purpose as you, transferring records to mp3.

At the time, it cost me $170, but i've seen them on ebay for as low as $100. This isn't the same one, but very similiar (mine was silver).

Well, I own a low-end Technics and it does the job for me. I wish I had it with me so I could tell you the model number, but I don't think it would matter because it's probably not sold anymore. Actually, I think it's from sometime in the 80's, but I picked it up for about $8 in a garage sale because the people didn't know you could replace a needle and cartridge I've now picked up about 100 records in the past 5 months. it's amazing how many people want to get rid of their vinyl.

A local record store sells new and used vinyl. They have a few thousand records in their $1 section, and the rest don't go over $10. I picked up a Gerry Mulligan double album for $3. It sounds fine to me! Vinyl is great!

I picked it up for about $8 in a garage sale because the people didn't know you could replace a needle and cartridge

Hehe! That's really a good deal you got on that turntable. Is it a straightforward model, or does it also have pitch control ?

it's amazing how many people want to get rid of their vinyl.... It sounds fine to me! Vinyl is great!

[Barbra Streisand mode]Meeeeeemories.....[/Barbra Streisand mode]

You know... that sounds like a great place to buy such equipment. I know several people that have turntables they wouldn't mind parting with for less than it would cost to ship it to you. I'd check out garage sales first, before I blew a couple hundred on a new table.

In reply to:

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I'd check out garage sales first, before I blew a couple hundred on a new table.

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After spending all afternoon poking around eBay, I'm convinced that if you want to support 78rpm records, your choices are to buy something old (i.e., 1970's or earlier) or to buy one of the brand new DJ decks.

I went to Guitar Center today to poke my fingers into all the DJ gear and see how I like it. One interesting discovery is that, for all the DJ record players that support S/PDIF output (Stanton, Denon, Numark), there's no externally accessible gain control. That's a big deal, because different cartridges have radically different output levels. They probably set the gain to support some kind of "average" cartridge, but the more audiophile-minded cartridges tend to be quieter, which means you're not getting the full use of those 16-bit samples.

Also interesting is just how influential Technics has been. Every other vendor's turntables are clones of the Technics SL1200 series, with minor differences here and there. There appears to be a furious arms race going on with random features being added by everybody but Technics to try to justify why you should buy them instead of Technics. Various checkbox features seem to include 78rpm mode, backward-playing mode, "battle" mode (turning the player 90 degrees to make it easier to swap records quickly), and "key lock" (constant-pitch tempo stretching, done via on-board DSP). When you look at them all together, they're so amazingly similar that you have to wonder if all these different brands are made in the same factory somewhere in China.

The solution I'm currently toying with is buying the Denon DP-DJ151 (typical online vendor). Strangely, TopDJGear has this for $299, while the "cheaper" DJ101 costs $349. For that money, you get the aforementioned digital output of dubious quality, but you also get line-level audio out, which means I don't have to stick a pre-processor between the turntable and my computer . Then, all I have to buy is an appropriate cartridge. The only concern with the DJ151, since it has a DSP in there, is that when you're playing it "straight", it might still be routing everything through the DSP, which could be an issue with the aforementioned possible lower line levels.

And, then I discovered www.78rpm.com. Finally, everything you need to know all in one place. They sell a bunch of 6 or 7-speed record players (there are several variants on "78" rpms that were used), and they also have some funky pre-amps that can deal with non-standard equalization curves that have been used before the RIAA standardized things in the 1950's.

(And audiophiles wonder why the world prefers digital technology...)

Is it a straightforward model, or does it also have pitch control ?

It does have pitch control, as well as a few anti-skip features and some other stuff that I'm not sure how to use or what it does. It's actually quite a good player, and the sound quality is excellent.

It really was a great deal. I mean, I had to spend another $30 to get the cartridge and needle, but it was well worth it. When I get back home next weekend, if nobody minds, I'll post to this thread on the model #.

[Barbra Streisand mode]Meeeeeemories.....[/Barbra Streisand mode]

Haha, no kidding. I picked up Quiet Riot's "Metal Health" for a buck, and that's from an era I have no clear memories of!

There appears to be a furious arms race going on with random features being added by everybody but Technics to try to justify why you should buy them instead of Technics

...and still real DJ's don't. They swear by "the wheel of steel". Before I bought my Technics, I bought two Numark Pro TT1 turntables. On paper they were the Technics superior in every way : direct driven mechanism, reverse play, 33, 45 & 78 RPM modes and digital RPM counter. They also looked nicer imho. So the store I went to managed to convince me to buy them instead of the trusted Technics even if they were $300 more expensive a piece.
But when I started to used them, something immediately didn't "feel right". Scratching was damn near impossible since the arm wouldn't stay in place, no matter how much weight I put on the damn thing. Cueing was also difficult for the same reason.
So after a week of cursing and swearing out they went, and I got myself two Technics 1210's (which I should have done in the first place). It felt like coming home, and I haven't looked back since.
Sure, other brands might have other models with some fancy features which you'll never use anyway, but still nothing can touch a Technics.

It's for this reason that these turntable ARE the standard in all the clubs and I don't see that changing ever. DJ's can walk into almost any club in the world and they'll know what they will find : two Technics SL1200's and most likely a Rodec or Eclair mixing table.

Of course, all this only really applies when you want to DJ with your records. You clearly don't, so this is all FYI. For what you intend to do with your turntable you might be better off with a Numark which supports 78RPM natively.

It does have pitch control, as well as a few anti-skip features and some other stuff that I'm not sure how to use or what it does. It's actually quite a good player, and the sound quality is excellent

Wow! Truely a bargain, even if you had to buy a new cartridge !
Please post the model# , you've made me rather curious just how much of a bargain you've done.

SP-DIF on a turntable, now I've seen everything!

Okay, I've emailed my roommate who is still there and asked him to forward the M#.

It turns out it is a Technics SL-D2. The full name he forwarded is:
"Technics Direct Drive Auto Turntable System SL-D2"

It has an automatic tone arm that will return at the end of the side or when the stop button is pressed. It doesn't, however, automatically bring the tone arm to the start of the record like my dad's does (I'll post that model tomorrow, it's a nice one).

I couldn't find anything about the player online. Anyone else have more luck?

HiYa,

Can't help much on the specs, but I have an SL-B2 which is the belt drive version. Both I believe are at the budget end of the scale (well for Technics kit anyway). Performance is just fine, lived with mine for over 10 years and have no desire to upgrade.

Cheers, Sim

Don't know the model itself, but a quick google search showed me this :

It's this one, no?
reviews

Seems to me like you did a helluva deal. Everybody is raving about this turntable, about how reliable it is, how long-lasting and how good the sound quality is.

I think you've found a good product there at an incredible price which you'll probably enjoy for years to come. Sweet!

What does it take to play a 78rpm record properly?

A rose thorn or a pared down toothpick, the former sounds better, but you need a fresh thorn for each 78, so you best buy the wife a bunch of roses.

Read on, before concluding I'm a nutter.

Before the advent of the 33/45 most cartridges used either replaceable steel or wooden needles, which simply attached to the cartridge with a thumbscrew.

In the early years of 33/45's - nearly all decks came equipped with a dual purpose cartridge - one side playing 33/45s and the flip doing the 78's. Like all the best compromises it did neither job particularly well, and the 78's suffered worse.

You've had really good advice on this thread about getting a good, modern 33/45 turntable. You will need a pre-amp to feed it to most sound cards, unless, by fluke, your mic input does the job - do you not have a hi-fi amp that you could use for this purpose, until recently most had a variety of turntable input options? If not, I know that you can get a perfectly usable pre-amp in the UK for about the equivalent of $75.

Beware of cheapo turntables with a built in pre-amp to plug into a music centre, it's worth getting the full, heavy platter.

My advice is not to try to look for one that also does 78's. You can, no doubt, find an old 78 deck from the 30's/40's in a jumble/car boot/garage sale. Mine is from a pre-war (2nd World) radiogram and feeds accurately into a line input. It took some trouble to get working, but succeeding was rewarding and it's a talking point for guests.

When I first got it, I was lamenting at a family get together that I couldn't get the needles; my grandmother perked up and said that when she was in her teens in the 20's, she couldn't afford the needles and took thorns out of the garden bushes to play records. They really are the best sounding option.

Hey, that's it! I'm impressed by your Googling

Yeah, I'm quite happy with it. Pretty much every user review has had only one complaint, and that's the hard-wired RCA cables on the back and how they're of poor quality. That would also be my only complaint. They are pretty cheap. Other than that, I can play 45, 33, and 78 RPM records, I've got pitch control, and and automatic-return tone arm. You're right, it was quite a deal. Thank goodness for parents of children who have since moved out

I have an old Technics table. I don't remember the model number but it is direct drive. I haven't used it in 10 years and it must be 25 years old. Looking at the Technics that are available today they haven't changed much in appearance. I remember when I bought it. I purchased a set of Infinity Quantum3 speakers at the same time. It was the most money I had ever spent. Even more than my car!