I am at a pivotal
point with my vinyl listening, where I need to make a decision to upgrade the
cart or turntable. My current table is
an Audio Technica AT-LP120XUSB, which is known to be a great entry level
TT. I have a Decware ZP3 coming in
December and want to be sure everything plays well together, whichever
direction I go. My understand is there
can be an issue with a carts output voltage if not matched correctly. I want to stay with MM and would consider
MI. I don’t want to mess with a SUT for
MC at this time. Music wise, I am all
over the place, so would need a new TT to have a removable head shell to have an
optional cart later on for different genre of music like jazz, 80’s alternative,
and 1970’s rock and Krautrock. If there is a single cart that would play most
all music genre well, that would be great!
The cart I
am thinking of is a VM750SH or something similar, Shure, Ortofon, Grado, etc. The VM540ML might be too bright for me. This TT is my first, so I have no experience
with anything else out there—purely reading forums at this point and no
specialty store nearby.
If I go the
new turntable route, I want to be sure it is a noticeable change. New, used, or vintage are all considerations
and I would like to not go too far over $1,200’ish if possible. I do have some room though. The TT would need to have a removable head
shell. I have seen Thorens mentioned
several times on forums. Certain models
seem better with better bearings it seems.
Would love
to get great feedback from the huge knowledge base out there.