Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion HiFi & HT Chat Advice on a turntable

Evening All,

Having listed to Elton John extol the virtues of vinyl recently (he has started re-buying all the vinyl he sold) and noting my local music store is now selling it again I thought I might give it a go too. Unfortunately I have absolutely no experience in this area having purchased my last record probably 20 years ago!

I currently own a 818 into a pair of 7200's so any connection would be into the 818.

Ideally I would not want to spend much more than £4000 / $6000 all in.

Other than that would love to hear ideas - there seems to be almost too much choice!

Cheers
Chris

I have analogue kit, but only came to vinyl in the past year. It has really shown up my CD player. With your DSP setup, you will lose some of the finer things a really good table can do ( although DSP Speakers obviously bring other benefits), so I think a modest table would be sufficient.

I have Rega RP3 with the Rega Exact cartridge ( most rp3 packages come with the elys 2 cartridge), plugged into a Rega MM fono stage. I am really pleased with it. Just sounds 'right' to me, although I did have to do an electrical tape modification to the sub platter to get it spinning at the correct speed.

With that budget, you can hop straight in with an RP8 with the apheta 2 cartridge and add their Aria phonostage. Very sleek looking and very highly regarded. The Linn LP12 Majik is also available for a similar cost, which will allow you to follow an upgrade path if you get the bug!

Thanks En1omb!

Interestingly I had seen a review of the rega RP10 APHETA 2 which I would guess is in the same turntable range.

Thanks for the advice really helpful!
Chris

Mitchell Engineering

I have a soft spot for these turntables, good looking and built to last

See Doug Brady for prices

Regards I

You might consider a phono stage with a USB connection so that you can archive your LPs.

I use a NAD PP3i for that purpose but it is not (IMHO) as good as the (optional) 516 phono stage in the 562V.

Yesterday, in HMV, I was surprised to see how expensive vinyl is relative to the price of CD.

While I do have a spare SME3009; when I can be bothered I will either buy a USB enabled turntable to rip my existing vinyl library - or buy a Thorens turntable to pair with my SME and utilise an existing Roland USB/Phono interface for the same purpose.

I already own SoundSoap in optimising such transfers.

I found that once I had a decent digital system (G08 + 5200) it sounded much better than my multi thousand pound vinyl set (full fat LP12 set up) up into the 5200s. I sold the LP12 and all its bits but just couldn't let the vinyl go even though I had bought a lot of it on CD to play through the G08. So I treated myself to a turntable that I always wanted because of its looks - Michell Gyro SE - and was surprised to find that it sounded much better than the LP12. A new arm, cartridge and phono amp over time has it sounding very nice indeed, and all bought as used items. I don't buy new music on vinyl but I can still play the hundreds of albums that I have not got on CD and I don't feel the need to replace them now.

So check out a Gyro SE.

Just an observation, but with the Meridian kit that you have and MQA in the early stages of actually being rolled out, this seems a slightly strange time to re-commit to vinyl!

I have owned & used a J A Mitchell Transcriptor Reference Hydraulic turntable since 1973, & whilst I believe it one of the sexiest pieces of HiFi hardware ever produced, the sound quality, IMHO, is not as good as a decent Meridian digital setup.

Just googled it, it is a thing of beauty.

Imagine what the reaction to it was 40 years ago, and in its day it was up there with the LP12 (but better looking). But it still doesn't sound as good as Meridian digital (or am I biased).

I'm with VirusKiller on this. I'd wait a bit to see what your reaction to MQA is.

I'd always owned a turntable (my last was a Nottingham 294 going into a home built, Joe Curio designed) tube pre-preamp, and didn't think I'd ever give up vinyl.

When Meridian came out with their apodizing filter, the jig was up. I sold all my analog source gear, and have never looked back.

With my limited experience hearing MQA (one local demo using an 818 into DSP8000SE's, and at home with a few 2L albums into a Prime), I'm thoroughly convinced that digital done (MQA) well handily beats analog.

Confiscate my audiophile club card and denounce me, starting . . . now!