Turntable advice

My wife is interested in getting a turntable as basically a kind of decor/lifestyle thing to put into a home office. Yes, to listen to music, but also because it's just kinda kicky and fun.

I know nothing about turntables. I have steadfastly avoided the analog world for my entire life. But I also hate junk, so if we're going to have a turntable, I want it to be a reasonably good one. But "good" here also means being low-setup/low-maintenance -- I don't even know what an azimuth adjustment is, and I never want to. If something would be better-sounding but is also more tweaky, I'm not interested.

I know this kind of filthy-casual equpment isn't exactly SBAF's wheelhouse, but also I trust you lot more than Wirecutter (which recommends the Pro-ject Debut Carbon Evo, and I don't know enough to know if that's reasonable or not). I'm hoping there's something that's basically respectable and decent, if a little basic, that would be a good recommend for this purpose. Wouldn't want to go too nuts on the price, since it's just a little system to the side that, as you can tell, will not be adjusted or tweaked into maximizing its potential. $500ish, maybe.

Any thoughts on this? Or is this a total fool's errand, and anything like this is going to basically be junk, and I should just buy some super-cheap sub-$100 thing and lean into it?

 

https://uturnaudio.com/products/orbit-special-turntable

This looks nice, is easy to set up, and sounds good. It’s still entry level but it’s not junk. You can get it with a built in preamp that probably is junk or get something like a Schiit Mani or one of the lower end Darlington phonos to pair with it. If you’d rather spend less the Orbit Plus should sound as good for less money, just a different aesthetic with the plinth material.

 

I have had a U-Turn table for a couple years and it sounds great to me. I use a Pluto phono, which is the same circuitry as the built-in. I think you'll be satisfied with the ease of use and sound quality.

 

My son bought me a U-Turn for Christmas and I've been very happy with it, setup was very simple and sounds nice. Fit and finish is very good. Not "audiophile" but definitely better than the 100 dollar cheapies.

 

@purr1n Did you ever try that denonaluminumbody.com tweak? You've mentioned it and I'm just curious if you think it's worthwhile give how relatively un-fussy the DL-103 is. (Not urgent)

 

The CAP is actually really good. 80% to 90% of the performance gains of a full rebody like the Paradox Pulse or Zu Denon carts. Strong recommendation from my end.

 

FWIW, I blogged about the Denon Aluminum Cap a couple of years ago.



I was just listening to my DL103 + DALCap mounted on an Orsonic AV101b head shell last night. Since that combination = 30 grams, I highly recommend the use of a high(ish) mass tonearm. Anything that can balance an SPU should work well, e.g. Fidelity Research FR54/FR64, Audio-Technica ATP12T/16T, SME 3012, Alfred Bokrand AS/AB309, etc.

I hope that helps!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

JE

 

I use that exact Onzow thing & havent cleaned my cartridge other than using the Onzow for maybe 8 weeks. I'll throw it under the scope and see whats to see but I've never noticed any build up before.

 

Here'e a couple of images of my cart. I cleaned this with a brush & cleaner over a month ago. I used the Onzow zero dust thing every needle drop since then, so 80 times? 100 ? More ?




There's dust & crap on the back of the cantilever & on the bottom further up towards the cartridge body but the cantilever area around the stylus is pretty clean. Now the stylus itself, perhaps the 'misshapen' look in the top image is a result of buildup, hard to see. There's definitely a dark area there but I've always seen that when cleaning it so who knows?

Doesn't matter either way since I managed to destroy the cantilever trying to to clean it after taking these photos. I'll have a 'clean' one after I have this repaired so maybe I can do comparison photos then.

 

Thanks for taking these. I agree: There appears to be some kind of build-up on the tip, but it's hard to say what it is or how much it would affect play. I admit that I'm the opposite of scrupulous when it comes to cleaning my stylus. Just the occasional dip in the ZeroDust.

But I think I'm going to go over to the Magic Eraser and an occasional dry brush with a paintbrush just for (something approaching) piece of mind.

I'm sure the ZeroDust, at the end of the day, can't be doing too much harm. Many people have been using them for quite some time with only occasional negative reports.

 

And, yeah, damn. Sorry about your cantilever. Hope it wasn't the A95....

 

hello,
once upon a time, there was an ultrasonic stylus cleaner.
i had one, does it still exist?
cheers!

 

Ouch. Seconded.

Not sure that's any sort of buildup though - the dark 'bump' on the first photo doesn't seem to be there on the second. Maybe just an internal reflection?

 

@wbass , thats an Ortofon Cadenza Bronze which is still freakishly expensive to repair unfortunately. Thats the major drawback to MC carts, you cant just insert a new cantilever and stylus. My own fault though so I cant complain about it. Gives me an excuse to slot in some different carts for a while, prob good for me.

@Biodegraded, there's definitely a darkened area on the tip of the stylus but I always took it as unpolished metal. The scope doesn't have enough resolution to exactly indicate if its metal or some thing on the cart but scrubbing with enzyme cleaner never took it off. So practically what am I supposed to do then? Scrub hard enough to break something ?

One thing with the Zerodust, it builds up dirt and oil on it fast if you dont keep the lid closed and clean it often. So that dirt and oil could get on the cart, or if you used soap to clean it & that could transfer as well.

 

Gah, sorry about that. Yeah, I recently set up my Koetsu Black (with some help from someone more experienced), and the first thing I ended up doing was bouncing it across a record. Luckily, it's playing fine.

Analog: music listening made hard.

Gotta say, though, the Koetsu sounds damned good.

 

Haven't made it into the Koetsu's yet, they certainly look nice.

Ortofon's repair time frame is estimated at 4 to 6 months currently, which in effect means "we have no idea how long it'll take." They offer a trade in service, I was able to get a new one for $1600 which isn't much more than the cost of the repair + shipping.

On a related note they seem to be low on inventory in the U.S. Production issues at the Denmark factory maybe?