Where to begin indeed!
I began back in the early 80's before cd's came on the scene. I was somewhat disappointed by the sound coming from my old Sony TT Sony Amp and Sony speakers, and so the quest began.
I did lots of research in magazines in those days as there was of course no internet, and the advice then was always the same, rubbish in rubbish out. In other words you needed to get a decent source signal in the first place which meant getting a quality TT before worrying about amp and speakers, as even budget gear would sound good as long as it had a good quality signal, whereas esoteric equipment would sound bad given a poor input signal. Certainly made sense to me.
There were many systems recommended depending on budget but all put the turntable as the major purchase. There was always the advice to get to a good dealer for a demo, and that is what I did.
I ended up getting a Heybrook TT2 with Linn Basik arm and A&R cartridge, and it is still my only turntable despite being 30+ years old
and I'm still more than happy with it.
Anyway what I'm saying is get to a good dealer if you can, and take their advice, they'll show you how to connect up, though it ain't that difficult really.
As for amps I've only ever used one with a phono input on board, so have never needed a separate phono amp, a lot of amps do not have a phono input so require a separate phono pre-amp. The reason you need a phono pre-amp is that the signal coming off the TT is so tiny compared with the output fom a CD or Tuner it needs a bit of boosting before your main amp can do anything with it.
Back in those early days for me I remember a number of turntables that were recommended.
Linn Sondek...out of my price range
Heybrook TT2 similar design to the Linn but a lot cheaper
Rega Planar 2?
Today Heybrook no longer exist, The Linn is still out of my league @ £2700 on the audioT website
Rega are still around and I believe still make respectable TTs the RP1 on audioT site is £230 (not sure if that includes cartridge though)
The only real way to decide is to try to draw up a short list within your budget and get to a good dealer and get some demos in.
PS
I've no connection with audioT other than being a satisfied customer of Audio Excellence who merged with Audio T a few years back.
I'm sure fellow forum users will be able to give you more specific advice on today's equipment, but for what it's worth my Heybrook is connected to a budget amp (Marantz PM6004) and a pair of Mordaunt Short Aviano 1 speakers. I'm pretty happy with this set up though it's by no means the last word in Hi Fi but I guess at my age mid 50's my hearing is no longer Hi Fi anyway!
Happy hunting! :wave:
This explains why you may need a separate phono stage better than I did
Most people don't realise that record decks will not normally work straight away with their stereo or home cinema system.
Record decks output at a much lower level than CD players, cassette decks or other audio devices. As a result, if you plug a record deck into an auxhillary input on your amplfier, you will hear a distored, quiet sound.
Back in the '80s, most amplifiers came with a 'Phono' input. This input was built with a
phono stage in it - a seperate pre amplifier that boosted and cleaned the signal from the record deck so that it sounded perfect.
However, with the decline in the popularity of record decks, most amplifiers now do not come with a 'Phono' input. Instead, if you intend to use a record deck, you must buy a
separate phono stage.
Simply plug your record deck into the
phono stage, and then use a
seperate phono lead to connect the phono stage to the auxhillary input in your ampllifier.
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