What turntables to get?

I'm trying to get some turntables. I'm not sure which ones to get. I'm probably going to get direct drive turntables, but I'm not sure what brand I should go for. Any suggestions? I'm new to this.

Nelim wrote:I'm trying to get some turntables. I'm not sure which ones to get. I'm probably going to get direct drive turntables, but I'm not sure what brand I should go for. Any suggestions? I'm new to this.

Don't "probably", DEFINITELY get direct drive TTs. Don't even think about belt driven. Technics 1200s/1210s are sort of the de facto standard, and many people are starting to swear by the Vestax PDXs. You can't go wrong with Technics, but there are some other good choices out there as well. Needles are going to be important also. What brand/kind of needle depends on whether you will just be sampling, or whether you will also be doing scratching or getting into other turntablisms. Personally I'm rockin' a pair of 1200s with Shure M44-7 carts. I've also owned Stanton Trackmaster IIs (I actually still do, but they are my backup needles now), but to me the M44-7s hold the record better and the output is higher than most other carts I've heard. 1200s sort of cost a grip new, and there are many different prices out there (I've seen anywhere from $399 to $699, w/o needles), but you can usually find them used for 2 and change. The M44-7s normally run me about $75ea new.

If you can, try some out before you buy. See how they feel to you. You don't need the most expensive thing out to get the job done.

Peace,
KM

I'll 2nd what k mello said..

Also what mixer ud need depends on what u wanna be doin, if u gonna be scratchin etc u wanna look at gettin a scratch / battle mixer, the stanton sa series are good startin mixers, or a sk2f (poor mans 05pro) just watch out for the sh!t focus fader, although they come with an alp fader u can easily replace it with once needed.

As for turntables alot of peeps goin with the numark tt500's and ttx's, they got better torque then the 1200's, not the strong build but then dont drop ur tables and u'll be ok lol.. alot of peeps are favoring them over vestax these days tho...

www.skratchworx.com will help u out.. and www.skratchlounge.com the forum

ide feel oddly horrible about myself if i recommended anything but 1200s.

K-Mello wrote:
but to me the M44-7s hold the record better and the output is higher than most other carts I've heard.

guess you aint heard white label...?

c0mplex wrote:As for turntables alot of peeps goin with the numark tt500's and ttx's, they got better torque then the 1200's

even numark tt200 got more torque than techs 1200






wat up dee...

i personally dont think the highest torque is the most important factor in picking a turntable. its not a pickup truck that youre going to be towing with ya know. i think a bit is required, but i dunno about maxing it out. gotta remember the numbers are metric, so those kilos of torque is per square centimeter. (unless some companies use diff standards to falsely inflate their stats, but ive never heard of that)

i was curious about the numark so i looked it up and you too can check the crappy reviews on here...
http://www.zzounds.com/item--NUMTT200

but i will say that i think its very awesome that numark uses detatchable cables for the power and rcas. thats a great feature. thats one of the few things i think technics could do to improve.

I dont know about all the torque info or whatever. Not a dj, I only use 2 sample off of it....bought it over year ago and no problems so far. it dont look as good as 1200's but it does what it supposed to. just didnt feel the need of dishing out doube the price of tt200 just to be able to sample. if they had Stanton T.50 at that time in stock I prolly would of gotten that.

i hear ya, wasnt trying toi hate. as longas its reliable it sound like a pretty good deal. get what works save that money for records cant argue with that. ive never used a straight tone arm deck and i still only own belt drive, (cause so many other people aroundgot the expensive stuff if i need to borrow). recently ive noticed that on older used 1200s its almost common for people to rewire them and that makes it hard to find two with the same volume output. not a huge deal with mixer levels, but man those breakaway cables would be sweet so they dont get messedup and have to be poorly rewired by fools. all equip should be so nice as to have those.

Thanks for the input. Appreciate it. So if I want to sample then a numark sounds okay?, and for scratching the 1200's? Which one is able to both sample and scratch preety well?

both of them

but i say go for 1200s

New to this and you wanna hand out a pair of 1200's to the kid? I object.

My suggestion would be to get some cheap or used middleclass direct drives w/ a decent pair of needles. Unfortunately I don't have any brand to recommend to you as i've only touched 1200's. If you can find some cheap 1200's, more power to you. However the new ones are overly priced and if you're just getting started you don't need 1200's until you're ready to take it to the next level (which to all of this, i'm assuming you're seeking 'tables to mix)

Ignore everything i've stated above if you have the dough tho!

Peace

For just sampling, a cheap belt-drive will do, actually. This is just my opinion but if I were you (which I'm not), and looking to just sample, I'd invest most of the money I had in a quality/fidelity "cart/styli" and pre-amp/mixer. Unless you're looking to scratch, an expensive direct-drive is a bit of a waste of money really. If you are looking to really scratch or beat the unit up a bit though, you already have good advices given by other people. So.

I'm personally confident with the quality of my set of 1200s and probably won't be switching up anytime soon, but they're overkill for solely sampling....unless you're just interested in build quality or scratching in the future.

Thanks for the input everyone. The 1200 sounds good. For now though, I'm just going to be sampling. So what can I use to sample besides some vinyl records?

u can sample anything man, casette tapes, TV, Radio, CD's, minidiscs, mp3's, if thats what u meant.

and the 1200's are built well and yea they are kinda expensive, but if u check ur local craigslist, u can find a used pair for cheap 100-400. so check that out, and even ebay

u might aswell start off strong

konc3pt wrote:

K-Mello wrote:
but to me the M44-7s hold the record better and the output is higher than most other carts I've heard.

guess you aint heard white label...?

wat up dee...

No I have not. Didn't even know they existed until you mentioned it, so I had to look it up. I'll have to check them out, or get somebody else to buy some so I can check them out since my 44-7s are fairly new and I already have a pair of Trackmaster IIs as back ups.

Just going by the specs on the Shure site though, the M44-7s are louder than the White Labels (9.5mV output vs 6.0mV output respectively).

Peace,
KM