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Is it worth to get a turntable?

Conan

Loop digger
My system:
Source: Node 2i with Tidal
DAC: S.M.S.L something
Amp: Myst TMA3 or Rega IO
Speakers: Falcon Acoustics Q7

Very happy with this setup but , having used technics SL1210mk2s until 2010 I now miss the pleasure of owning vinyl.
I am considering a turntable and I have a list of my favourite albums that I could buy.

I can't stretch to a SL1210 so I was wondering if I could get anything decent for £400? Or shouldn't I bother?
 
I think the recent price hike in vinyl has put me off a little but still buy it. You could get a baby rega or look at something 2nd hand might be able to get a rega p3 if your lucky, think I have seen something on here. If you enjoyed it before you will again. Just try to demo if you can because different decks different sound. Look for a 2nd hand technics sl1500 if you like technics. I have one and love it.
 
If you are interested in modern/current music and want a far more personal and direct way to support artists via Bandcamp and highly limited stuff via various indie shops (Rough Trade, Norman, Assai etc), plus an interesting speculation opportunity it can be great fun if expensive (though mostly stuff holds its value or increases). I really recommend this! The current jazz market is interesting too with lots of really high quality audiophile reissues etc, and often of titles that would run £hundreds, even £thousands to locate mint original pressings. Again really good speculation opportunities there too, many of my most valuable records are long-deleted audiophile cuts. Older rock music is more challenging as standard current reissues are almost always inferior to the 60s and 70s originals, so you need to do some proper hunting second hand and have fairly deep pockets for some stuff. Classical can be a total bargain. Most classical vinyl is absurdly undervalued and a crazy bargain, despite some of the most valuable records on the planet being in this genre. It is a very strange market!

PS You’ll find a good record shop here on pfm!
 
My system:
Source: Node 2i with Tidal
DAC: S.M.S.L something
Amp: Myst TMA3 or Rega IO
Speakers: Falcon Acoustics Q7

Very happy with this setup but , having used technics SL1210mk2s until 2010 I now miss the pleasure of owning vinyl.
I am considering a turntable and I have a list of my favourite albums that I could buy.

I can't stretch to a SL1210 so I was wondering if I could get anything decent for £400? Or shouldn't I bother?
Don’t bother
 
Yes of course you can. A s/h Rega 3 should be perfectly do-able, and your Io already has a half-decent MM stage. Don't conclude that Technics decks (or direct drive in general) are the only answer. And be prepared for some hi-fi snobbery.
 
I'd stick a wanted ad in the classifieds and see what turns up.

If you get back into it and enjoy hunting for records then happy days. If it's just gathering dust after six months you can punt it on for what you paid.
 
I got one (un-asked for) for my birthday last year, and kept it for my youngest (I prefer digital).
We now have 3 LPs which we've listened to once, mostly because my amplifier has a single input and also because I can't be arsed.
 
Within the bounds of common-sense, the money spent on the replay kit is all but irrelevant. The cost of the hard copy software will be crippling to gather a collection large enough not to bore you rigid.

20 LPs - somewhere around £600 new. OK, a lot cheaper if you want to go diving around charity and junk shops, but choice will be mighty limited.

Despite what gets repeated times almost beyond number, LPs are much the same price now as 20-30-40 years ago when you figure in inflation. (In 1975, the £ was worth around seven and a half times what it is today.) What you can get now that wasn't easily available then is extremely high quality pressings of really well-recorded and mastered stuff in the £25-30 bracket.

IMO, even though I basically play nothing but records, only someone with limitless money and/or little brain, buys a TT when they have no records already.
 
Predictions, given how you've been listening for the past few years.

Short term. You'll have fun buying records and trying to maximize sq.
Long term. You'll be back to streaming most if not all the time.

Recommendation? Have fun now. Give it a try.
 
Once owned a Myst TMA 3 (wish I still had it), had a really good mm phono stage on board.

Lovely sounding amp.

My vote goes for a second hand Rega P2 with a good platform underneath it and reasonable mm cartridge.
 
I think a lot of us were very lucky in the late 80s and 90s when provincial British towns usually had more than one charity shop with massive boxes of records for 20p each, and amid the usual Best of Val Doonican or 5 Star 12"s you could find Oscar Peterson, or the Go Betweens, or Wire, or Dare.

At least half my 1500 albums (modest by the standards here) share that provenance.
 


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