Best turntable for the buck

Rvpiano

i’ve been a VPI Prime owner for about three years. I bought a B-stock unit from Music Direct, and I’m located in the USA. if you can visit Cliffwood, New Jersey you can hear all that VPI has to offer. A used Prime or B-stock might be what you really want to consider based on price (usa) and performance. I’m currently using the 2M Bronze Ortofon cart and 3-D unipivot arm with second pivot. The cartridge was new with the Turntable purchase. I am a DIY kind of guy so I was looking for a “final” turntable that had upgrade potential that I could do myself. If you like an upgrade path the Prime certainly has one. Every upgrade I’ve made to my Turntable has been an audible improvement. I have successfully avoided buying a better turntable to get better sound.
lightly off topic to your hardware search is just how Important it is to have clean vinyl when playing your records. (and keeping your stylus clean). The quality setup you’re looking for WILL reveal sometimes unexpected presentations in your records and perhaps not surprisingly, the cleaner your records are the better they sound. I hope you already have a cleaning system in place, if not you should budget for one.

Ask your dealer for a list of the albums he used for the Evaluation. if you like the genre of music and recordings you probably have similar taste. If you don’t like the choices he makes I would be More independent and look for your own evaluation based on several albums you like the sound of. Your dealer should know about everything in your system and what your long-term goal is in terms of sound satisfaction. The prime has a 20 pound platter and does require some yearly maintenance. If this would be a problem for you or a technician then perhaps the simpler table is a better choice.  😀😀😀