Some of the old early 80’s HK turntables can be a great deal.
Some things usually need to be done, though. In the HK tables they may need new damping foam in the sprung footers, but that is an easy job.
A notable problem is finding good arm bearings in older tables, at that price range.
also look into mico seiki turntables. Some of the most notable ’brand name’ Japanese turntables were made for those brands by........ micro seiki.
Go to hifishark and type in ’micro seiki’ or Harmon Kardon tc (tc-60, tc-35, tc-65, etc)
Your most important thing to learn is setting up the cartridge on the arm with the correct geometry/alignment/position. This will have the biggest effect on your overall fidelity of output.
I mean..heck..right here on the ’gon..:
https://www.audiogon.com/listings/turntables-restored-2018-01-10-analog-befcdf57-a6a0-4bae-8c46-8716...
I’m not saying it is the best buy, but they show up everywhere. So go fishing and you can spend some fun time learning which is the best micro seiki, and some of them are quite gorgeous. Completely manual tables are always the best sounding. you can add a manual arm lifter thingie as a aftermarket ad on.
Getting auto lift is generally bad news as it adds a bunch of mechanical garbage to the arm and thus interferes with the mechanics of vibration in the arm and thus makes records sound worse. all for convenience. the strippers (fully manual tonearm operation) are always the best sounding. Note that nearly 100% (~+99.9%) of all ’real turntables’ have purely manual tonearms. $100k turntable? fully manual? Not a chance it would be any other way.
Some things usually need to be done, though. In the HK tables they may need new damping foam in the sprung footers, but that is an easy job.
A notable problem is finding good arm bearings in older tables, at that price range.
also look into mico seiki turntables. Some of the most notable ’brand name’ Japanese turntables were made for those brands by........ micro seiki.
Go to hifishark and type in ’micro seiki’ or Harmon Kardon tc (tc-60, tc-35, tc-65, etc)
Your most important thing to learn is setting up the cartridge on the arm with the correct geometry/alignment/position. This will have the biggest effect on your overall fidelity of output.
I mean..heck..right here on the ’gon..:
https://www.audiogon.com/listings/turntables-restored-2018-01-10-analog-befcdf57-a6a0-4bae-8c46-8716...
I’m not saying it is the best buy, but they show up everywhere. So go fishing and you can spend some fun time learning which is the best micro seiki, and some of them are quite gorgeous. Completely manual tables are always the best sounding. you can add a manual arm lifter thingie as a aftermarket ad on.
Getting auto lift is generally bad news as it adds a bunch of mechanical garbage to the arm and thus interferes with the mechanics of vibration in the arm and thus makes records sound worse. all for convenience. the strippers (fully manual tonearm operation) are always the best sounding. Note that nearly 100% (~+99.9%) of all ’real turntables’ have purely manual tonearms. $100k turntable? fully manual? Not a chance it would be any other way.