The revival of vinyl records is nothing short of amazing.  From the time the CD became ascendant, in the mid-1980s, vinyl was all but given up for dead.  “It’s scratchy!”  “You can’t play it in the car!”  “CDs sound better!”  Not coincidentally, the curve on the graph labelled “my vinyl buying” was the exact inverse of the “vinyl sales” curve, as LOTS of people unloaded their collections and you could pick up armloads of LPs for cheap.  (More on that in another post.)

Anyway, vinyl is back for all the same reasons It does give people a tangible, meaningful connection to their music.  With few exceptions, vinyl quality is WAY better now.  A wider variety of quality-remastered audiophile quality repressings from places like Mobile Fidelity and Analog Spark is available, and great new and vintage vinyl sits side-by-side in many actual record stores.  Plus, having a turntable in your crib is (still) undeniably cool.

But, people, people: you can’t just have any turntable.  There are a slew of inexpensive decks out there, but I will tell you that the turntable is NOT the place to cheap out.  At the very least, the low-end decks will not be kind to your vinyl, and they just are not up to the task of reproducing the sweet, sweet nectar contained within the grooves of your favorite records.   (I won’t mention the “leading” brand, but the thought of it makes me “Cross.”)  Years ago, Ivor Tiefenbrun, the creator of the Linn Sondek turntable, championed the idea that the turntable is the most important link in the music reproduction chain.  You could have the most incredible speakers and amp, but you’ll never recover the information lost from using a crummy turntable, i.e.: garbage in, garbage out.   He ain’t wrong.

So, let me help a brother/sister out here.  If you’re on your way to building a starter system, do this: pick your speakers first.  You must have an idea of where they’re going to go – Bookshelves? On stands?  On the floor?  Decide if you want self-powered speakers like the excellent AudioEngine A5, or “passive” speakers for which you’ll need an amplifier.  In both cases, you’ll still need a standalone or built-in phono preamplifier to connect your turntable.  You can get excellent and inexpensive external preamps from Pro-Ject, NAD and Parasound for under $200.

Now, at the lowest end of the turntable range, your best bets are from U-Turn and Audio-Technica.  The AT-LP60 can be had for eighty-nine bucks, including a respectable A-T cartridge AND a built-in preamp – so you can connect it directly to your powered speakers.  You just cannot get anything better at that price.  It will be nice to your vinyl, and do its best to make you happy.  But if you’ve got an extra hundred bucks or so, the U-Turn Orbit Basic (including an Audio-Technica cartridge, $179.00/$249.00 with preamp built in) is your choice.  In fact, if you at all can, save up that extra hundred and spend it on the U-Turn.  It’s superbly engineered to do everything a turntable should do, but with none of the ‘exotic’ materials seen in some other, supposedly better, turntables, without having to take out a second mortgage.  AND, it’s made in the USA, in Woburn, MA!

If you’re really flush, higher up the price chain, you can find superb turntables for under $600, including the excellent Rega Planar 1, complete with cartridge and built-in preamp; and for about $900, the VPI Cliffwood – another US-made deck – with a Grado cartridge (made in Brooklyn!)

Those are a lot of great choices.  You might ask yourself, though, what about pre-owned turntables?  Can I get something great for a couple of hundred bucks?  Well, it’s complicated.  It’s true that you can find a real deal on a real quality pre-owned Thorens, AR or Dual – or even a vintage Technics.  And the look of a vintage turntable on your shelf can’t be beat.  Check out this beauty from Vinyl Nirvana:

The issue is that, as opposed to speakers or electronics, which tend to be more robust, turntables can be finicky beasts if they haven’t been cared for properly.  They’re not hard to take care of, but even if you know how to check a turntable over, you can still find a lemon.  That’s why I’d be very choosy about what you take home with you from the thrift shop – you might be surprised at what your little bargain might actually run you if it needs a new arm or suspension!  The good news is that there are plenty of great audio shops selling used turntables that have been serviced to be good as new.  I highly recommend Vinyl Nirvana – I’ve been a customer for a couple of years now, and Dave Archambault, the owner, carefully and reasonably services and restores Thorens and AR turntables.  Some of those restorations are real works of art, with exotic wood bases. 

But for you, dear vinyl novice, hold off on the zebrawood turntable bases for a while.  Go find yourselves a starter turntable!  Fly, my pretties!