New turntable for my daughter

[rusomon]

This past year I unloaded a lot of audio stuff. In the midst of this I had the idea to upgrade my daughter's old Kenwood turntable. With this in mind I traded some of that aforementioned stuff for a Rega P2. Problem solved. Only it wasn't, owing to an incompatibility between the Rega and her stereo shelving, which she wasn't open to changing. OK, fine. That being the case I set the notion aside: her Kenwood was good enough. And it was, until it died a couple of months later. On to turntable number two:

Since the Kenwood had been fully automatic, and my daughter was comfortable using it, I decided to look at new automatics. After a fair bit of research I settled on an Andover Spindeck Max, which is essentially the same turntable as the Pro-ject Automat A1, both produced by a German company that used to make turntables for Dual, and even a few for Thorens. This fact gave me some assurance, as did its list price of $600. I wasn't expecting greatness here, but it couldn't be crap, right? Wrong. The platter on the turntable I received was canted to a comical degree, nowhere even in the neighborhood of level. Worse yet, that platter weighed-- I'm guessing-- maybe 10 or 12 ounces. The whole design was like that, cheap, flimsy, and lightweight-- a toy turntable, at best. (But hey, at least it fit on the shelf.) Naturally enough, back it went. On to turntable number three:

A Pro-ject Debut Carbon EVO. Problem solved, this time for real. If you need to buy, or want to buy, a budget turntable, this is the one. Highly recommended, no hesitation.

 

[Thermionics]

I used Technics SL5 turntables for both my kids (in fact, my daughter has hers with her in college - my son stopped using his turntable a couple of years ago when he rearranged his room, although he still has his records).

 

[rusomon]

I used Technics SL5 turntables for both my kids (in fact, my daughter has hers with her in college - my son stopped using his turntable a couple of years ago when he rearranged his room, although he still has his records).

Ironically enough, I had an SL-7 I got rid of just before I decided to upgrade her turntable. In my defense, though, it did need a new stylus, and possibly an arm belt (I didn't check but you have to assume...), not to mention the extensive buffing it would've taken to make the dust cover presentable. All of which I suppose I could've done, but at that point I was already in all-out purge mode. That series of Technics turntables is pretty nice, though.

I expect with the Pro-ject there won't be many Dad-to-the-rescue calls. Not sure how true that would've been with the SL-7.