r/turntable

I’m setting up a vinyl listening area in a 12x15 room. Want to listen to classic American and British rock, jazz and some blues. I current have old KLM speakers that sound surprising okay, but certainly need an upgrade. I’m Not planning to add a subwoofer. I have an A/V system in another room with older Paradigms thst sound really nice for CDs to my ear and I’ve listened to vinyl at a friends on vintage Boston Acoustics that sound great. Those Boston A60 are a bit big for my current needs.

I’ve looked at and listened to Wharfdale 12.2i that sounded good to me but maybe slightly out of budget. I also listened to KEF Q1 metas that sounded good, too. Unfortunately, I can’t listen to both speakers together, and I think they’re quite different. They’re definitely on budget. Also considering Wharfdale 12.1i for both budget and footprint, since I liked the 12.2s but don’t think I’ll be able to listen to them. Also considering the newer Paradigm Premier 120 v2 since I like my older Paradigms, but I don’t think I’ll be able to hear them in person.

I know I don’t like bright speakers (For example, kilpsch sound very bright to me). Would love to stay in the $400-500 range if possible.

Hey y’all so I’ve been searching for a good starter record player $100 to $200 dollars but I’m not sure which or what to get i was looking on amazon good reviews but speakers not the best which i guess comes with not paying a whole lot should u go to a record shop and look at they’re record players i saw a crosley at good will for $19 but only came with one speaker no power extension i figured it wasnt the hastle and to just buy one i know would work i also have been looking at fb market but you never really know on there i guess im just asking a good place to buy a good record player with good speakers that wont stop on me i really want a old one no bluetooth that was actually made to last and good sound and speakers someone help

I need to replace the cartridge on my vintage Fisher MT-640 turntable.

I need help deciding between the AT-VM95ML or the more expensive VM540ML.

I listen exclusively to classical music.

Here is my setup:

• Fisher MT-640
• Schiit Mani 2 pre-amp
• Sony STR-DE315 receiver
• Polk Signature Elite ES50 tower speakers with Polk subwoofer.

I am leaning toward the VM540ML, but I don't know if the difference will be that noticeable to warrant the extra $100.

Any advice or ideas would be appreciated! Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I’m looking to get into vinyl and would like some advice on a good setup for a beginner. I’ve been looking online, but there are so many different options that I’m having a hard time figuring out what’s actually worth buying.

As far as I understand, I’ll need a turntable, speakers, and an amplifier (unless I go for active speakers).

I came across this bundle for €1,000:

• Argon Audio TT MK2
• DALI KUPID
• Argon Audio SA2

Does this seem like a good deal for a first setup, or would you recommend putting together something different for around the same budget?

I’m mainly looking for good sound and something that’s easy to use, but I’d also like to leave some room to upgrade in the future.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Hello fellow Reddit dwellers, Aldayo here.

I run Et Sona, a hi-fi and music publication, and after spending an unhealthy amount of time reviewing cartridges, turntables and other objects that make increasingly expensive noises, I ended up building a couple of tools to solve problems I kept running into myself.

The first is SPIN x Et Sona:
https://spin.et-sona.com/
SPIN is a listening and equipment tracker for vinyl. You can set up your turntables, tonearms and cartridges, import your Discogs collection, log what you actually play, track stylus hours and keep a record of equipment maintenance.

The basic problem I was trying to solve was that Discogs is excellent at telling me what I own, but it doesn’t really tell me what I do with it.

If I have three cartridges, for example, I want to know which one is actually getting used and how many hours I’ve put on each stylus. If I’ve got hundreds or thousands of records, I also want to know what I’m actually listening to rather than simply staring at a very impressive list of things I apparently own.

This seemed like a perfectly reasonable problem to solve.

Naturally, I built an entire application.

The second project came from a similar rabbit hole.
CartridgeVault:
https://cartridgevault.et-sona.com/

I realised while doing audio reviews that finding reliable cartridge information can be surprisingly painful. Specifications are scattered across manufacturer sites, old PDFs, archived pages and various corners of the internet where information appears to have been placed in 1994 and then abandoned.

CartridgeVault is an attempt to put that information somewhere more useful.

It’s a searchable database of phono cartridges and their technical information, including older and discontinued models. You can also submit cartridges that aren’t in the database and propose edits or corrections to existing entries.

So if you’ve got an obscure cartridge sitting in a drawer, or the original documentation for something that disappeared from the manufacturer’s website years ago, there’s somewhere to put that information rather than letting it die in a filing cabinet.

Both projects are free.

There are no subscriptions, paid tiers, advertising schemes or “unlock the good cartridges for $4.99/month” nonsense.

There’s no commercial interest in the user data either. SPIN stores the information it needs to function, including equipment, collection, listening history and maintenance information. The data isn’t being used for advertising or profiling, and I have no intention of selling or sharing it.

The Discogs token used by SPIN is kept in the active session rather than stored in the SPIN database.

The account system uses an email address and password, but there’s no intention of contacting users. If you lose your credentials, I can’t retrieve or resend them for you.

The two projects are essentially the result of me encountering problems while doing the thing I already do with Et Sona, deciding that the existing solutions weren’t quite right, and then apparently deciding that the sensible response was to spend a considerable amount of time writing software.

I’m putting them out there because I suspect there are other people who have exactly the same slightly obsessive relationship with cartridges, stylus hours, records and technical specifications.

SPIN: https://spin.et-sona.com/
CartridgeVault: https://cartridgevault.et-sona.com/

There are also dedicated communities for both projects:
r/SPINxEtSona
r/cartridgevault

And yes, I realise I’ve now created Reddit communities for two applications whose existence began with me complaining that I couldn’t find information efficiently enough.
At least I’m consistent.