[KONAKONA]

Right, well I got me a turntable today, and it seems to work for the most part. It's a bic 981, and it apparently needs a new needle. Any ideas for a new needle?

Also, being someone who has never owned a turntable before, I don't have a phono or any of that stuff, or at least for the most part. We have some yamaha receiver that IIRC has a phono input. However, the display on it is shot and the headphone jack is just flat out junk (Needs to be re soldered or replaced). I also remember hooking up my Q40s to it with a mp3 player for input, and it sounding well, not that good. Would it be worth attempting to fix this or should I look into buying a phono/amp/all those stuffs?

 

[NightOwl]

BIC turntables have been known to have the bearing seize up from dried out and solidified bearing lubricant in the spindle well. Before you spend any money, make sure that the platter spins freely. It could also probably use a tune up. If you want, I can dig up some links.

BIC tables were designed to match Shure cartridges. Your best bet for a phono cartridge would be a Shure M97xe.

Here is a link to a primer on turntable set up.

Phono CARTRIDGE Mounting, TONEARM Alignment TOOL, TURNTABLE Set-Up, VTA, LTA, Adjustment of BIAS Compensation.

You may also want to register at this site and browse around.

Vinyl Engine | The Home of the Turntable

Your Yamaha receiver sounds like it's had a hard life. There are probably other things wrong beside the obvious (like capacitors, potentiometers, etc.). If you don't intend to play back your vinyl through speakers or require a switch box for multiple sources, I wouldn't repair it.
The cheapest phono preamp that's decent is a TC TCC-750 that you could hook up directly to your headamp. Better would be a Cambridge Audio Azur 540p.