Belt Drive Turntable around $500

Wait and spend a little more money, it will save an upgrade or two in the future.

Whatever your budget get used to get the most bang. That will get you up a rung or two on the food chain. Used Rega, Pro-ject, Music Hall. A few others I'm sure people will suggest here too. Good luck!

This is a problem for a lot of people. I am sure you have checked out and found what you get for $1000.00 in a new table. It stinks..all plastic made to specs that even a D.J would be embarrassed to use. I have a Yamaha PF1000 in natural wood (walnut) with Ortofon om-20 cartridge for sale. Beutifull condition. Dust cover has some very light scratches... hardly noticable. I have been asking $600.00 but would consider $500.00 just to move it out of here to a new home. I am currently using a Music Hall MMF9.1 with a Denon Dl302. I have a total of $2200.00 invested in my Music Hall. Do the math on that one. The Yamaha's sound is very close to my Music Hall. Let me know if you are interested. Have a great week.

Michael Walters

If you were pleased with the 47F, get another one. I have two 47F's. one is a spare. Still going strong. Next to my 47F sits my VPI Aries with its $2k cartridge run into the SDS, etc., etc. Sure the Aries sounds a little better, but it lacks the automation of the 47F. I love its repeat feature. Yes, forget the belt TT. At your price point it will not sound better then the 47F. As you know, the Shure is a great cartridge and mates well with the 47F. To get my kids into vinyl I have given them 47F's. All have been pleased and did not see any need to go to belt drive units.

$500 belt drives are dull as dishwater and barely upgradeable. They're made out of plastic and MDF. For around that money you could get a Technics DD made of cast aluminum and heavy duty polymers, with slick-as-silk controls, and make a few inexpensive tweaks to improve smoothness and inner detail. Later you could upgrade it with some KABUSA.com products like the fluid damper and a tonearm rewire.