Question What turntable to buy with £400 cartridge and £200 preamp

[Roland W-H]

I've got a £1000 budget for a turntable, cartridge and preamp. I've already chosen my preamp its an ALVA DUO from Cambridge Audio priced at £200 and I'm looking to spend around £300 - £400 on a cartridge but as for the turntable, I'm a little stuck. I'm looking for a turntable with a speed control button. Ideally, belt drive but will settle for direct drive and I'm having trouble finding one. I was looking at the Rega Planar 2 but it is fully manual and I really don't want to mess around too much whenever I need to change the speed.

Any suggestions as to which turntable to get would be very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

PS: I was also wondering if I went to a HiFi store to buy my turntable would they sell it to me without a cartridge for a lower price as I'm not going to keep the included cartridge with any of these turntables unless it sells separately for £300 - £400

 

[Deleted member 116933]

sorry, but i dont understand why your not looking at probably the best bang for buck table on the market, the technics 1500c. It has an amazing built in pre (would take around 4-600 quid to truly beat it and not just side stepping) and will happily take a 2m black when your ready to upgrade darko audio seems to like it. Comes with a perfectly expectable 2m red. Which sounds better on the table than it has any right to.

Failing that if you want to upgrade straight away sell the red and buy the cart of your choice. probably be couple hundred over budget. But i never pay the price on the ticket and im sure deals can be made. The table would last you a life time.

 

[Gray]

sorry, but i dont understand why your not looking at probably the best bang for buck table on the market, the technics 1500c. It has an amazing built in pre (would take around 4-600 quid to truly beat it and not just side stepping) and will happily take a 2m black when your ready to upgrade darko audio seems to like it. Comes with a perfectly expectable 2m red. Which sounds better on the table than it has any right to.

Failing that if you want to upgrade straight away sell the red and buy the cart of your choice. probably be couple hundred over budget. But i never pay the price on the ticket and im sure deals can be made. The table would last you a life time.

I like the look of that Technics myself. At £900 they're not exactly giving it away, but as stated above, it does include the preamp and cartridge which adds to the value.
I've had a play with the old 1200 DJ model and liked that. They say the 1500C is more cheaply made (in China, not Japan), otherwise all you're really losing is the pitch control - no loss at all. Nice direct drive, no new drive belts ever needed.
Removable headshell for easy cart changes (if that's important to you).
I'm interested and I've got a perfectly good TT already!

 

[Al ears]

Nice though it may be the OP doesn't have that money in his budget. Even if he sells the phono preamp he has bought he doesn't have enough for the deck and a £300 cartridge