If it were my money (and has been), I'd go with the Herron Audio VTPH-2A phono stage, VPI Avenger and Lyra Delos. But that's just me. YMMV. YOMV.This is great gear, but it would amount to an expenditure of roughly three times the value of the OP's current gear.
Showing 7 responses by fsonicsmith
You are asking a question that has no answer. Your choice of equipment only tells us a little about you. You like ARC, like tubes, and you either seek value in used equipment or haven't updated perfectly good gear in quite some time. I owned that VS110 until a year ago btw. And I now own a Ref 6 and Ref 150SE. So this meaningless answer is like throwing a dart with a blindfold on after having been spun around like a game of the pin the tail on the donkey. How do you know you will like vinyl? What's you game plan if you don't? If you have to ask such a broad question on a Board like this, how in heck do you plan to set it up correctly? Turntables mean cartridges and cartridges mean set-up expertise. I started out with a $1000 Pro-Ject RPM-5, then went to a VPI Classic and then to a VPI Prime and now I mostly used a hot-rodded restored Thorens TD124. I like to quote Art Dudley who recently wrote that he has a hard time recommending any current era new turntable. I am going to nonetheless venture out on a blind limb and suggest you consider this; http://www.hifigem.com/polytable.html and a Manley Chinook. Why? Well this table is not the sharpest looking but it delivers on sound basic principles. The Jelco arm on this deck is a classic, proven value. I advise all vinyl neophytes to avoid unipivot arms. That means forget about most VPI models. I own a Manley Steelhead and love it, so I am biased in favor of the Chinook. Let me say it again, answering your question is like answering, "what card am I thinking of?" You need to find someone to set up the table for you. You ought to also try and install a wall mount for your new deck unless you have poured slab floors. Good luck. In fact, since I just invested ten minutes, please PM me or report back publicly in this thread about where you end up. |
Jaym759, you're more than welcome. The Jelco arms look dated but they outperform anything in their price range. It boils down to bearing quality, tolerance, construction and ease of adjusting VTA, SRA, VTF, azimuth, and zenith. Don't get me wrong, with a simple cartridge, getting VTA such that the arm tube is parallel with the record surface is going to take care of SRA. Which is why I would recommend you start out with a Denon D103R. For $450 you will get a great starter cartridge with a conical stylus which means great sound without a lot of fuss. Calling it a "starter" cartridge is unfair-it's an amazing cartridge period. Sure it is nothing to look at (true of every piecer of gear I've recommended and true of your VS110 (such a great amp though!) but trust me, once someone sits down and listens to music, no one is looking at their cartridge. So yeah, something like a Lyra Delos or Ortofon A95 is a beauty to look at but you can't see it from your listening chair, they must be set up perfectly due to their stylus shape, and one stray swipe of a finger and you're out $5K! |
1 bpolletti! Just because the venerable 103 was designed back in 1962 doesn't make it a mediocre piece of cr*p! And the venerated Ortofon SPU's are even older! No, the stock 103 sounds fine and will do the job (play records). Upgrades are available (new stylus/cantilever, wood and metal bodies ... ) for far less than the cost of a new "higher end" cartridge!I'm just trying to save someone else from the anguish of my own mistakes. I am 59 and grew up with vinyl in the 70's, got out of vinyl in '84 and then back in around 2008. When I bought the Pro-Ject RPM-5SE, I had no clue what I was doing. I heard crackling that in fact was coming from a defective switch connector in my preamp (due to not using the input selector for so many years-my input was always my CD player) and I thought it had to be a loose or defective cartridge pin connector and I managed to snap off a pin on the factory-provided Blue Point Special. Pan forward to my next deck which was a VPI Classic purchased "blind" from Galen Carol Audio who recommended that I buy it from him with a Benz Glider SL and a Moon Audio LP5.3. All good gear though I have moved on mostly. But I abused the crap out of that Benz Glider while oafishly trying to adjust the unipivot arm on that deck. I never got good sound out of the VPI Classic teamed up with the Benz Glider. I watched Fremer's set-up video a dozen times and tried everything I could, and bought a Fozgometer and a test record but I don't think the Benz Glider and the original JMW10.5 arm were a good match and I can say that because I have installed that same Benz Glider (re-tipped by Peter Lederman) in a 12" Reed 3P and it sounds phenomenal. You gotta learn to walk before you can run. You don't need to get fancy/expensive analogue gear to get great sound. You do need to get stuff that matches up well, is foundationally solid, and you need to set it up right. There is not stronger argument for brick and mortar audio stores than setting up a turntable for newbies. And there is no stronger argument for an easily adjustable tonearm than the fact that newbies need to learn by doing. That VPI JMW10.5 had tiny recessed allen key grub screws that were awkward to access and needed to be loosened and than re-tightened for VTA and the idea of adjusting azimuth by turning the egg-shaped counterweight or trying to rotate the lateral counterweight ring all the while seeing your arm canted over to one side when your Fozgometer showed balanced cross-talk was a horrendous experience. I still have a VPI Prime with 3D arm and by then the arm became a bit easier to adjust by design and by virtue of my experience, but this is why I say stay away from VPI unipivots as your first decent deck. Unless you are going to have a local pro set it up for you. And after this very long screed let me say this; that Gem Dandy Polytable properly set up with a Denon D103R and a Manley Chinook can sound glorious-far better than a VPI Avenger with Lyra Delos and Herron Audio VTPH-2A that is NOT optimally set-up and the margin between "properly set-up" and not "properly set-up" gets finer and finer as you move up the ladder. |
If you have no Lp's now, why go into analog, the learning curve is very slow.The vinyl-deny-ers just don't get it. It's not about convenience or practicality. It's about getting involved. You have to hunt for good records and when you find them, you can touch them and see them and store them tangibly. The turntable is a simple mechanical device that you can touch, adjust, and understand. All of this goes away with digital. Back on topic, the OP ought to understand that turntables, phono stages, and cartridges all have flavors. So does the wiring in the tonearm and the phono cable from tonearm to phono stage if applicable (my Reed 3P has one continuous cable from cartridge pins to phono stage-the way all tonearms ought to be :-) ) OP-my suggestion of Gem Dandy Polytable with Jelco arm, Chinook phono stage, and Denon D103R will render rich tone like a Rembrandt painting. Many vinyl rigs that aim for retrieving detail are just not particularly euphonic or fun to listen to. I very much appreciate Raul's affirmation of my gear recommendation but his tagline of "play music and not distortions" is divorced from reality. There is no getting away from distortion. It must be instead accommodated in your favor. If you ignore every other thing I say, fine, but please don't ignore my suggestion that your first new table needs to have an arm that can be easily adjusted in the real world by which I mean on your equipment rack without the necessity of removing it to some laboratory type setting ;- ) The purpose of having a pro set up your table the first time is so that you can hear first-hand how good your deck can sound providing you a reference point but you don't want to end up being in a position where you are helpless without the pro each time your deck no longer sounds up to par. Go Into this with eyes wide open that set and forget does not apply to vinyl. The suspension that holds the cantilever in placer changes with time. You need to be able to detect it and adjust accordingly. If that is not satisfactory, than the quote above does apply validly to you. |
Raul, my friend, you seem to forget that their is distortion introduced by every microphone known to mankind, but every piece of the recording chain, by every piece of the playback chain, by every amplifier in particular) known to mankind, by every tonearm and phono cartridge known to mankind, by every loudspeaker known to mankind. Even the concept of recording and playing back in stereo rather than mono introduces distortion. My point is to play the system and play the room. Does a solo female singer sound true to size, tone, timbre, and organic or does she sound like a bad hologram? Does piano sound suitably plunky, woody, and with tinkle or does it sound artificial? These are good starting points. |
Just so you know, for what little it is worth, I have decided that compared to my Thorens TD124 fully modded and revived by Greg of ClassicThorens/STS mated with a 12" Reed 3P arm, my VPI Prime just does not cut it. That is despite having a pro come out to my house to see if he could do something to coax magic out of it that I could not and despite using a periphery ring, Phoenix Engineering Falcon and Roadrunner, US cleaning of records (which is overrated), etc. Now I must emphasize-the VPI Prime is a very good table. It makes lovely music. But there is more "there there", more blackness, more dynamics, more thrust, more bass (particularly more bass in fact) with the Thorens/Reed combo. I have about four times as much money into the Thorens/Reed too. And in case someone wants to know-yes-I have tried 5-6 very well regarded cartridges with my Prime. So consistent with my very first post in this thread-it may be highly personal, but I don't like unipivots. I also prefer idler to belt drive. So I have put my Prime up for sale and I bought a new Reed 3P for my second deck-to-be, this time a 10.5. Then I came down to which deck to mate the new arm with and for me it came down to two. The Gem Dandy Polytable Super 12 or another vintage idler. I came very close to pulling the trigger on the Gem Dandy, particularly when George Merrill promptly responded to my questions and offered to personally mount my Reed 3P. But, a rare Garrard 301 came my way-one that is virtually NOS, grease bearing, and rare ivory colored. Since it is to be a second deck and I don't need two top-end decks, I was thinking I ought to be sensible and save $2000-2500 and just buy the Polytable Super 12. I had my imaginary frugal alter-ego perched on one shoulder and my spendthrift alter ego perched on my other. My neck was getting sore listening to them argue. But that Garrard kept calling my name and the guy I purchased the Reed from (who is biased being an avowed Garrard fanatic) helped me decide to go with the Garrard. My point being that my recommendation is truly mine. Here is a neat little factoid-Sleeve City-fwiw-only sells one turntable. It is the $1800 Gem Dandy Polytable. https://www.sleevecityusa.com/GEM-Dandy-PolyTable-p/gem-polytt.htm |