[davidmiya]

I've been wanting to get into vinyl for a long time. As I mentioned in another thread, I do have a cheapo Kenwood KD291A that I bought to play my dad's old LP's from the 1970's. However, I must note that I do have a "United Audio Products Dual 1229 Professional Automatic Turntable." Unfortunately, the tonearm is messed-up and fails to move properly. So, I just decided to buy a cheap replacement. At the time, I didn't know about Head-fi and just bought whatever I could find for less then $100.

Anways, now that I have all kinds of cool headphone gear, my cheapo Kenwood turntable is WOWING me totally. It totally outpaces 90% of my CD's save the audiophile-quality CD's that I have.

Knowing that I have cheap crap right now, I was wondering what to upgrade to for less than $500. After doing a lot of reading and searching through the forums, I've come up with a list of budget turntables that came up more than once. However, there seems to be some disagreements as to what to buy, and where to buy, espeically when it comes to the the Music Halls and various combinations of catridages. Anyways, the following is a list:

Rega Planar-2
Rega Planar-3
Music Hall MMF-5
Music Hall MMF-7
Thorens
Sumiko Pro Ject 2.0
MMF-1 and MMF-2.1
NAD TT

Now, I must note that, if I have to buy a turntable for $500, I don't want to spend another $500 to get a good cartridge. Perhaps the max I'd spend for the ENTIRE setup is $600. And after reading some stuff, MMF-5/7 look good. Though, I'm still not sure what I'm getting myself into.

Please help me

 

[fewtch]

I'd definitely go for the MMF-5 or MMF-7. Music Hall has had a few quality control issues, but you should be able to get a replacement or repair if there are problems with the table (good idea to look into this ahead of time).

As far as what you're getting into... Music Hall tables are damn close to "plug & play" as far as turntables go. I understand the instruction manuals that come with them are near useless, but finding another owner is easy (the Vinyl Asylum is a good place to ask questions, and no need even to sign up there to post). They also have good resale value if/when you decide to upgrade.

Edit -- make sure to budget for a good phono stage if you don't already have one. If you need a cartridge, there are quite a few decent ones around ~$100, this isn't an area you really need to pour money into unless you have a very pricey table. As counterintuitive as it may seem, the table is more important than the cartridge as far as overall SQ.