I took my vintage Harmon Kardon T65C turntable to my high end audio dealer to see if he could tune it up as well as put a new cartridge on it. I was surprised by the reception I got. First upon looking at the turntable the guys told me that I should never sell it and that my turntable couldn't be replace for less than $2000 today. Wow! . They also told me I couldn't buy a CD player at any price that would sound as good as that turntable.

So they recommended a Grado Red cartridge for starters and tuned her all up. They tried it out on an jolida setup and it sounded quite nice.

For those vinyl lovers out there, what else should I do to my table? Did I get the right cartridge? My phono stage is in a B&K pro 10 pre-amplifier.

I don't know that turntable (is it a linear tracker?). But if it can SOUND $2000 worth, it deserves a lot better than Grado Red! Grado Platinum at least....

Are you enjoying the sound yourself yet?

Wow! That's a great table. I had one myself and really regret letting it go. This is one of the very few older tables that does'nt sound "vintage". The Grado Red is a good starting point and if you only have a few records then it should suit you fine. You got a good set-up and I would take the time to insure that I had good,clean vinyl to play on it. Buy yourself some record cleaning hardware,find some good music and enjoy. Don't let us gearheads spoil your fun by advising you to upgrade.

Guys, thanks for the replys. I would agree that for a turntable that the guys are telling me can't be bested for less than 2000 it probably deserves more than a $100 cartridge. But, the guy who owns this shop (actually his vinyl junkie pal) suggested I get to know vinyl again before spending gobs of money. I even offered to spend up to 200 and he suggested this cartridge to start, and then If I got into it, to move up.
I was just so excited about how these guys treated this turntable when they saw it, and they were both vinyl junkies.. They poked and prodded and amazed over all of the ajustments and the quality.. and it was just sitting in my basement gathering dust. I just had to say something here.

Good advice from Tuberoller, as usual. Enjoy that cartridge for a while before you think about upgrading.

The Grado Prestige series of cartridges are generally well liked, so it's a decent choice. They're not really the best trackers however (so they can show some inner groove distortion, sibilance, stuff like that), and have a tendency to hum with some turntables. Many people love their warm midrange however.

Just a FYI, it's "Harman Kardon" (spelling) (most people get it wrong ).

http://www.harmankardon.com/

Edit P.S... the only under-$100 cartridge I ever recommend anymore (I've tried many) is the Audio-Technica 440ML. Just a FYI if you're interested:

http://www.lpgear.com/Merchant2/merc...tegory_Code=A3

http://shopping.netsuite.com/s.nl/c....it.A/id.219/.f

Thereasmarie

It's always nice to hear of people getting back into Vinyl.

Vinyl has been getting a bad rap for a number of years now, and quite unfounded.

The great thing about Vinyl is once you get past the initial layout (small for you as you alreadyt had the deck) the cost is minimal and the amount of good quality & cheep vinyl available is staggering if you look around.

I'm on an economy drive at the moment due to work problems so i've been bypassing the mall and going to dusty second record stores and buying up 10-15 lps for the price of 1 cd. Can't beat that for value!



Anyway, enjoy your deck. (I just know you will )

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Trawlerman, thanks for the post and the suggestion. I've been looking on ebay and acousticsounds.com for vinyl and it's not very cheap and in fact most is more expensive than CD. I need to find some local discount/2nd hand shops around here.

There is lots of great vinyl on ebay, collectable stuff is just that and you pay alot for it. Many companies are releasing some great new stuff on vinyl. Although many of the new issues are expensive.


Hit the thrift shops, I buy lots of stuff for 50 cents. A great way to try new music. Oh... and buy a good record cleaner. I recommend the disk doctor system, really revives the the thrift store finds. Or an alsop orbitrac to save some money.