Turntable Advice

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I am willing to spend between £100 and £200. I have been considering the Pro-ject Deubt III and the Pro-ject Debut Esprit.

Any advice? How much difference is there between the above mentioned turntables? Any recommendations?
 

matthewpiano

Well-known member
If you are prepared to buy 2nd hand and one comes up that you are able to collect in person (rather than have sent in the post) I would wholeheartedly recommend a Thorens TD150 or TD160. These turntables are superb. I'm on my second TD150 having replaced the first with a Michell TecnoDec which just didn't come close. The Thorens will leave the Pro-ject decks for dust. They sound warm and musical, just the way vinyl should be.

The other stunning deck that you could look for 2nd hand would be a Rega Planar 3. Simple, elegant and still very very difficult to better.
 
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Anonymous

Guest
Yeah - don't think much of the Project turntables (although, its all I have!) due to their lean tonality and very resonate structure. Always go 2nd hand with turntables - it's very hard to buy a rubbish one and the prices are superb. I would look at the Rega P2 and various Pioneer PL models from the late 70s with better arms.
 
T

the record spot

Guest
Doubt you'll get a P3 for that money but a P2 is definately on the cards. Great deck, very tweakable too; the RB250 arm is a prime candidate for upgrades, the you can add new replacement mats for very reasonable money (Achromat by Funk, Ringmat from Ringmat Development) and all manner of rewiring jobs to mains or interconnect to the amp.

Alternatively, trawl the web to see if you can still land a new or ex-display Goldring GR2 - basically a Rega P2 but with RB250 arm AND the brilliant Goldring 1012GX cartridge. Best deck under £300 when it came out two or three years back and you very occasionally see one appear in independent dealers. Originally £265, but I saw some for £220 earlier this year. To give you an idea of where we're at with this deck, the arm and cartridge retail for about £130 and £110 respectively. As the Yanks say, do the math...!

Other P2 variants include the NAD533 and these occasionally appear new too.

Older decks - if buying off Ebay be as sure as you can be with your the apple of your eye; check with the seller that "excellent" means excellent. Generally, you can find the aforementioned Pioneer PL-12D, but also other gems like the Systemdek-IIX, or IIX-900 which are great buys and also tweakable. Thorens is another to watch out for. Go for the TD160 over more recent decks like the (very average) TD-280-IV for instance.

Great vinyl replay can be had for relatively little outlay, spare £35 for a service (i.e. get the inner workings cleaned and re-oiled, etc) and £60 for a cartridge like the very popular (on here) Ortofon 2M Red or the superb Denon-110 and you'll have a deck that'll be a seriously good budget proposition.
 
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Anonymous

Guest
Thanks for the advice. What about the NAD C555? I've found somewhere selling it for about £220. So how come you guys don't rate Pro-ject? Is it because they don't offer much upgrade potential? I'm quite tempted by the Debut III as I think I should be able to get it for about £130 which seems pretty reasonable. Would it be a mistake?
 
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Anonymous

Guest
tjsshanty:Thanks for the advice. What about the NAD C555? I've found somewhere selling it for about £220. So how come you guys don't rate Pro-ject? Is it because they don't offer much upgrade potential? I'm quite tempted by the Debut III as I think I should be able to get it for about £130 which seems pretty reasonable. Would it be a mistake?

I have heard it is a very bad deck - I think it was What Hi-Fi who said so, too!
 
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Anonymous

Guest
Not to question the advice given above regarding 2nd hand turntables, but if you're new to the world of vinyl and want the security of buying new, I don't think you can go wrong with the Debut III for the money. Through a half-decent amp and speakers it represents a significant improvement in sound over budget (i.e. sub £250) CD players.

Just my opinion of course.
 
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Anonymous

Guest
I've got a pair of Kef iq5 ses and a Cambridge Audio Azur 540A (V1) amp so I do want to get a turntable that will match their performance. I am relatively new to the vinyl world so I am probably not ready to start getting into upgrading parts and tweeking etc.
 

matthewpiano

Well-known member
tjsshanty:Thanks for the advice. What about the NAD C555? I've found somewhere selling it for about £220. So how come you guys don't rate Pro-ject? Is it because they don't offer much upgrade potential? I'm quite tempted by the Debut III as I think I should be able to get it for about £130 which seems pretty reasonable. Would it be a mistake?

The NAD would be a great buy if you want to go brand new. Its built for NAD by Rega and uses the RB250 arm. FAR superior to the Pro-jects in terms of build and sound.
 
T

the record spot

Guest
If you can get a NAD555 (or the aforementioned GR2) go for it. They're effectively Rega P2 clones, and to echo the last post, you'll get something that licks the Project.

It's not that they make bad decks, far from it. They've made some excellent decks up to £1500. However, at the lower budget end of the scale, there's the Genie, the Debut, or there's a P2 clone. It's almost a no-brainer.
 
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Anonymous

Guest
O.k. well I'm nearly decided I think. So the Nad C555 would definitely be better than the Pro-ject Esprit (about the same price as the Nad)? The Esprit has an acrylic platter which looks to be a good feature in its favor.
 
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Anonymous

Guest
Also according to the website a Richersounds has a new NAD 533 selling for £99. How would that fair in comparison to the above mentioned two turntables?

And I've found somewhere selling a Rega P2 for around £200
 

John Duncan

Well-known member
The NAD is better value at that price, but if you have the 200 quid, I'd get the rega - that little bit better made (I suspect the arm on the NAD is not made quite to RB250 tolerances) and better support if it goes wrong.
 

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