Hi everyone,
I've been collecting vinyl records for roughly a year now but I've had one of those really cheap crosely record players that I picked up on sale for 50 bucks. In retrospect, not the smartest purcharse. I've been told that their needles can actually damage your records with prolonged use. Anyways I was new to the vinyl game at the time and I've come a long way since then so now my dad and I are working together on a major upgrade.
For turntable we're debating on purchasing either the new Rega RP-1 which Stereophile reviewed very favorably and happens to be on sale over at Insound.com for 20% off. The other turntable we're looking at is the Music Hall MMF 2.2. Now both are great but I know for a fact that the MMF 2.2 has a lever/mechanism that automatically lowers the needle for you, but I'm not sure that the Rega RP-1 has this same feature. I'm a little paranoid about having to place the needle on my vinyl by hand. Does the Rega have an automatic needle-drop mechanism? Also which of these two turn tables would you recommend and why?
For speakers we’ve decided on a pair of Audioengine P4s after reading about them on Steve Guttenburg’s blog over at Cnet. Anyone have any experience with these?
Finally we’re struggling to find an ideal stereo receiver. We know for a fact we don’t want any of those annoying ipod-ready docks and we’re not going for some major 5.1+ surround sound entertainment setup. What we need is something preferably bellow $400 dollars with phono input. Icing on the cake would be being able to integrate the stereo receiver with my PS3 and TV, and an mp3 audio jack in the front so I can occasionally hook up any mp3 player (not all of us want or own ipods). Any recommendations will be greatly
Hi everyone,
I've been collecting vinyl records for roughly a year now but I've had one of those really cheap crosely record players that I picked up on sale for 50 bucks. In retrospect, not the smartest purcharse. I've been told that their needles can actually damage your records with prolonged use. Anyways I was new to the vinyl game at the time and I've come a long way since then so now my dad and I are working together on a major upgrade.
For turntable we're debating on purchasing either the new Rega RP-1 which Stereophile reviewed very favorably and happens to be on sale over at Insound.com for 20% off. The other turntable we're looking at is the Music Hall MMF 2.2. Now both are great but I know for a fact that the MMF 2.2 has a lever/mechanism that automatically lowers the needle for you, but I'm not sure that the Rega RP-1 has this same feature. I'm a little paranoid about having to place the needle on my vinyl by hand. Does the Rega have an automatic needle-drop mechanism? Also which of these two turn tables would you recommend and why?
For speakers we’ve decided on a pair of Audioengine P4s after reading about them on Steve Guttenburg’s blog over at Cnet. Anyone have any experience with these?
Finally we’re struggling to find an ideal stereo receiver. We know for a fact we don’t want any of those annoying ipod-ready docks and we’re not going for some major 5.1+ surround sound entertainment setup. What we need is something preferably bellow $400 dollars with phono input. Icing on the cake would be being able to integrate the stereo receiver with my PS3 and TV, and an mp3 audio jack in the front so I can occasionally hook up any mp3 player (not all of us want or own ipods). Any recommendations will be greatly