[spartan777]

I'm looking at a couple used turntables in my area, but I'm not sure whether the model's are any good. If anyone has any experience with any, I'd like to hear. The B&O one looks somewhat old, so I'm sure its built well.

Bang & Olufsen 3404 Turntable
Crosley Stack-O-Matic Turntable

If there is anyone in the Milwaukee or Chicago area that knows a good, used, sub $100 turntable, I'd love to hear about it.

 

[memepool]

Quote:

Originally Posted by spartan777 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm looking at a couple used turntables in my area, but I'm not sure whether the model's are any good. If anyone has any experience with any, I'd like to hear. The B&O one looks somewhat old, so I'm sure its built well. Bang & Olufsen 3404 Turntable Crosley Stack-O-Matic Turntable If there is anyone in the Milwaukee or Chicago area that knows a good, used, sub $100 turntable, I'd love to hear about it.

the B&O is very good indeed but a new stylus will cost you 150USD so may be more than you want to spend. the other one is junk.

this looks promising
Vintage Dual 1241 belt drive turntable

 

[spartan777]

I was about to call the guy, when the Vintage Dual posting got pulled. I ordered the Green Grado cartridge, and am picking up the B&O soon. I'd still be interested in trying another turntable if its cheap. And if there's anyone in the Milwaukee area with vinyl to sell, let me know.

http://milwaukee.craigslist.org/ele/1371164943.html

does this Sony PS-LX520 sound good?

Thanks for all the advice!

 

[NightOwl]

Quote:

Originally Posted by spartan777 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I was about to call the guy, when the Vintage Dual posting got pulled. I ordered the Green Grado cartridge, and am picking up the B&O soon. I'd still be interested in trying another turntable if its cheap. And if there's anyone in the Milwaukee area with vinyl to sell, let me know. Sony Turntable PS-LX520 does this Sony PS-LX520 sound good? Thanks for all the advice!

The Sony is not good. It was manufactured in the 90's which was the dark ages for mass market turntables.

I hope you didn't buy the Grado Green with the intention to use it on the Bang and Olufsen table. What memepool meant by his earlier post was that the 3404 takes a proprietary phono cartridge. Only certain B&O cartridges will fit.

I browsed your Craigslist. Slim pickins'. If you want to try a semi-decent entry level table, this is the best of the bunch. Your Grado Green would work in this table.

JVC TURNTABLE

 

[memepool]

Quote:

Originally Posted by spartan777 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I ordered the Green Grado cartridge, and am picking up the B&O soon

Sorry I should have mnade this clearer. B&O decks have proprietry B&O carts so standard carts 1/2" or P-Mount won't fit.

This is because B&O are designed to take all the pain out of matching and aligning carts so what you are buying is more akin to a Moving Coil cart (although actually B&O's design is more akin to a Moving Iron like a Grado) where you replace the whole thing and it's designed to just slot in, perfectly matched with no alignment necessary.

Rega's 3 point mounting design is a slightly cruder modern parallel of this but allows standard mounting too.

The cart for the Beogram 3400 was originally the MMC 5000 which was designed for Quadrophonic records in the late 1970s and is long gone. The cheapest one that will fit is the SMMC20E Soundsmith built phono cartridges

So you are looking at 229USD on top of whatever you pay for the deck which is why you often find Beograms going for a song these days. But also bear in mind that The Soundsmith is one of the top cartridge guys in the world, and his equivalent non B&O carts go for 1500USD so what you are getting is actually very cheap for this level of bespoke craftsmanship, compared to a mass produced cart which you'd usually find at this price level.

If you can afford this then it is a very high quality record player indeed and you would need to spend 1000USD or more to get something of this standard new today.

 

[spartan777]

"If you can afford this then it is a very high quality record player indeed and you would need to spend 1000USD or more to get something of this standard new today."

Hmm. I was planning on not spending more than ~$150. The guy who has the B&O hasn't responded yet, so I guess that's good I didn't try fitting the Grado to it.

"I hope you didn't buy the Grado Green with the intention to use it on the Bang and Olufsen table."

Yes, I was... I was born at the height of the cassette era (1988) so I don't really know anything about vinyl. I'll have to read up more than I thought.

I'll try to get the http://milwaukee.craigslist.org/ele/1354017897.html

 

[memepool]

Quote:

Originally Posted by spartan777 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hmm. I was planning on not spending more than ~$150. The guy who has the B&O hasn't responded yet, so I guess that's good I didn't try fitting the Grado to it.

Amazon.com: Panasonic Technics SLBD20D Semi Automatic Turntable: Electronics

This would be the cheapest decent table you can get for that amount new. I'd take one of these over a similar style of vintage JVC.

I've never read a flattering review of any JVC deck although I'm sure they must've made some good ones at some point. Even the quite expensive looking direct drives with wooden surrounds which werte designed to compete with the Technics SL**00 series got panned in the UK press anyway.

I wrote a list culled from old reviews here http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f7/low...source-228059/ if you want to continue scouring the local ads.

The above mentioned Technics I should also mention isn't a standard 1/2" mount either but a P-Mount which is a similar design to the B&O but not so highly toleranced. Good news is that Grado still make these if you wanted to get one.