New to Turntables


So I was thinking of venturing into the world of turntables…..

I have it narrowed down to 3 possibilities…..

Mofi Ultradeck with Ultragold cartridge…. A $1495 cartridge pre installed….

Music Hall 9.3. with Goldring Eroica Lx ……. A $900 cartridge pre installed

Pro-ject X8 Evolution with Sumiko Moonstone cartridge…. A $350 cartridge preinstalled

All three prices are within $250 of each other….
With the Music Hall having the lowest price…
But I’d have no problem going for the MoFi…the most $$$$
The X8 was the lowest price, but not by much…..

I’m just guessing here, as I have been out of the turntable game for 30+ years, that once you get to turntables in this price range, the cartridge is very important for the sound…. Maybe I’m wrong…..

Should I go with the turntable that has the most expensive cartridge ?
Does price equate to quality ?

Is the most expensive the best cartridge ?

Thanks for any insight

Shelly

shelly40

Showing 1 response by displayname

This is an interesting combo of approaches you have here. If you are truly sticking in that lane, I'll toss out this line of thought. 

- If you start with a nicer table and lesser cart, you can easily upgrade the cart later. But if you start with a lesser table and nicer cart, you might not get everything out of the cart and you'd need to replace the whole table for the next level up. 

Having said that, I have a Mofi Ultradeck and I recently added a Hana ML. The Ultradeck is certainly up to the task, and I think it should be with the Ultragold as well. 

The phonostage in your preamp will get you started, but the MC stage might not be an ideal match for the Ultragold (or any other MC cart). As you move up into MC carts, phonostage matching kind of becomes more important. I also just recently started musing an SUT, which is a whole different rabbit hole, but something you could explore down the road as well.