In need of an amp and cartridge to complete set up!

[JamboClark]

Hello I'm a jazz student at the Royal Welsh College in Cardiff, and having spent a lot of time listening to music with other students who have these great set ups, and getting into vinyl, I've gotten an appetite for listening to music properly, and for good sounding music with detail and depth, I'm finally putting together a hi fi set up of my own.

It's begun with getting a pair of speakers and a record player down from the attic of my parents' house - which I will be keeping (hoorah) It's as follows-

A pair of Wharfedale Linton 3XPs in great condition, which I'm enjoying! (they were clearly in the attic because of their size rather than anything else) They fill the room nicely and give a pretty clear picture without losing much detail or depth.
And a Pioneer PL-112D, which after wiping the old ruined belt away and replacing it, is working fine...

At the moment I'm using an Ortofon VMS 3 Cartridge, and a Sansui AU-2900 amp. Yeah I'm enjoying the sound of all this but the cartridge and amp are from elsewhere in the house and aren't up for grabs for the likes of me.

So I'm on the search for an amp and cartridge. As a student, I'm on a low budget but was looking to spend up to £200, £250 - though that may need to go towards a phonostage as well depending on the amp.

I've been recommended a Rotel RA 1 or 2, and have found there are a lot of Rotel models out there as well as those.

So yes, if anyone's got any recommendations for those that'd be great, I'm looking to get a more budget friendly cartridge in anticipation of upgrading in future and not over spending with the lower end record player I've got. So am looking to spend the bulk of my budget on the Amp, one I could keep when I perhaps get a new record player/ pair of speakers in future. I mostly listen to vinyl and an aux from my laptop (Itunes) and Ipod.

In the way of what I listen to on this set up, a broad range with jazz at it's core I guess, not so much 1930s and 40s records nearly as much as more contemporary music, Ornette Coleman through Sun Ra, to Bill Frisell, Django Bates and Keith Jarrett. But then also music like Massive Attack, and also Feist... and accordion music (a confused listener perhaps, but I'm not looking for something to cope with my thrash metal, audiobooks and Beethoven Sonatas)

Cheers!

JamboClark

[smeg68]

Hey there mate,

I live just up the road from you in Bridgend and am a vinyl head of the old school, having gotten my first turntable at the age of 6 and never having been without one 38 years later!

If you want any advice on gear to buy I'd be happy to help. Drop me a PM, I get into Cardiff every couple of weeks anyway. Could always meet you for a coffee in Ramons if you like

James

[JamboClark]

Ah good to meet you! Sorry I can't PM yet.. I've only joined vinyl engine in the last few days so apparently I need to participate more before being allowed to do that!

I've even yet to go to Ramons actually, I'm staying with the family at the moment in Leeds though before next term starts! But blimey do I love living in Cardiff!

Yeah it'd be great if you could let me know what might be a good cartridge for my set up for up to around £50 I'd be very grateful! I do hate to ask about budget gear on forums like this as it's so much less exciting but from a student point of view it's gotta be done!

[smeg68]

No worries!

That turntable suits budget MM cartridges. A Red Ed would be a cheap option at around £20 for the elliptical version. At around £35 there's the Audio Technica AT-95E and beyond that the Ortofon 2M Red at around £75. Bear in mind you will either need to get an amp with a built in phono stage or budget for a separate one. Plenty of information about all these carts on the net, have some fun googling them

[Rob998]

For the Amp, how about the Marantz PM6003? It's recently been replaced by the 6004 so there are a few bargains to be had, like this one: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Marantz-PM600 ... 500wt_1156

It's a very nice modern amp & has a MM Phono stage built in.

[JamboClark]

Oh now you've got me in a twist Rob998! Thanks a lot for that advice, that does look like a real bargain and the Marantz does have great reviews, how do you think it would compare to the Rotel RA-04 or -05 which I'm also looking at at a similar price?

cheers!

[Rob998]

With recent Rotel kit, I can only speak for the RA-04SE, which I considered before I got my Arcams. I found it a little bright but quite enjoyable, it was nice & upfront in it's presentation. The Marantz is a little warmer but still energetic when it needs to be. I preferred it to the Rotel due to the extra warmth, then I heard a 2nd hand Arcam in a dealers & decided to go there instead.

They're both good amps, but I'm guessing it might be a little difficult to audition a PM6003 as they're discontinued. You could listen to a PM6004 to get an idea as it has a somewhat similar character, but has moved things on from it's older brother.

[smeg68]

The Rotel is likely to be a better match for those Wharfedales I think. I had a pair of Shelton XP2's back in the day and they were slightly warmer than neutral. I expect your Lintons to be the same way.

[spiceyokooko]

You're going about all this in the wrong way in my opinion.

The Pioneer isn't bad for what it is, but it's not a turntable I'd start building a system around. It's a cheap budget entry level turntable and will always be the constraining factor in any system you build, it will have to be replaced at some point. You might as well replace it right at the start!

I guarantee that if you continue down the route you're going you'll make expensive mistakes you'll have to correct in the future.

You say you're looking to spend £200-250 on an amplifier, your turntable isn't good enough to put in front of a £200-250 amplifier because all it will do it show up weaknesses in your source. It's the old GIGA principle - Garbage In Garbage Out. If you send a rubbish signal to an expensive amplifier, all the amplifier will do is amplify it and all the speakers will do it reproduce it. At no point can you ever make up for the fact that your source is not extracting the maximum amount of information from the grooves of a vinyl record.

It's not hard to see then, that the vast majority of your budget should be going on the source component - the turntable. This also allows you a natural upgrade path without having to replace any expensive components as it can be done gradually as and when funds allow.

I appreciate that as a student you're on a tight budget and funds are limited, which makes it even more important not to waste any money. I certainly wouldn't be spending £200-250 on an amplifier within that system.

There are loads of really quite good little amplifiers that would suit your purposes perfectly while you save your money for a better turntable. I started out life with a little NAD 3020, you could pick one of those up pretty cheaply on eBay. Cartridge wise you don't need anything better than a basic Audio Technica AT95E at this stage. Those two shouldn't cost you any more than £50-60 and put the rest of the money towards a better turntable.

You should ideally be looking at say a minimum of a Rega Planar III with RB300 (c£200-250), a Dunlop Systemdek, Thorens TD150, 160 or even better still an older basic (not upgraded) Linn LP12 with cheapish arm shouldn't cost you much more than £350-400.

Any of those turntables with the AT95E, NAD 3020 and Wharfedale's would be a huge improvement over the Pioneer.

Start out with the very best turntable/arm you can afford and upgrade from there.

[JamboClark]

Thanks for that Spiceyokooko I do very much see what you're saying. And thanks Smeg and Rob (this is like a victory speech) Well the news is that yesterday I got myself a Rotel RA-04 on ebay for only £130, which I was really chuffed with as I was expecting to pay more and for an RA-01. **There are a few more for grabs on ebay, they've really gone down in price with Rotel's new releases it seams!

And today I've ordered myself an AT95E So now to wait by the front door!

I probably would have gone ahead with buying this amp having seen your advice though, just because in truth this is my first turntable, and the beginning of my vinyl collection - I only have 3 records so far, so really a lot of the listening I'll be doing as my vinyl collection builds will be from CDs.

Really I think because I had to get an amp, I would find it difficult to buy something knowing I was going to replace it as soon as I could. And with the 04 I'm glad to have an amp that I'll not have to replace for a long time!

But you've definitely stressed to me the importance of a better record player, and with the saving I made on this amp, that should hopefully come sooner!

Thanks a lot - and now that I've got the taste I'll surely be looking into the models you suggested momentarily!

Once it's all delivered and set up in my new house I'll probably thank you all again as soon as I hear it!

[smeg68]

Good combination of components I think. the amp will certainly stand a few upgrades

If you need a hand setting the TT up, don't be shy about dropping me a line.

[lini]

sykk: Sorry, but imo the source first camp is just as stupid as the speakers first or whatever first croud. Because in the end it doesn't matter where the bottleneck is in a chain of components, so that with "whatever first" one will automatically not get the maximum out of "whatever" for most of the time - so a reasonably balanced approach would seem more clever on the whole. And I also wouldn't quite concur that a PL112D with a nice cart would be be too low quality for a nice little system. Sure, one day the Pioneer might turn out to be the current bottleneck - but it's just as well possible, that JC may already have found his personal "point of good enough", before that happens...

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

[JamboClark]

Fair advice yeah, well the AT95E's arrived and I've set it up, gosh it really sounds great. Especially enjoying Joni Mitchell/Blue right now! Completely addicted to the sound of Vinyl as well. Yes really I'll live with this for a while and see if I feel something needs upgrading, let my ears decide rather than anything else! But yes thanks for the AT95E suggestion, really happy with it!

[spiceyokooko]

Fair advice yeah, well the AT95E's arrived and I've set it up, gosh it really sounds great.

I wouldn't pay much attention to that bunch of incoherent rambling if I were you. I've given very specific reasons why I hold the view I do and it's a tried and tested formula for success, followed not just by me but a great many people who value high quality audio. I wish someone had told me this when I started out, it would have saved me an awful lot of money and angst.

The philosophy is a simple one - put rubbish in and you get rubbish out, it doesn't get much simpler than that really does it? Yet even that seems too complicated to get across to some people

I'm glad the AT95E arrived and you've got it all setup and running, the AT95E is a solid performer and shouldn't need upgrading for some time. In many ways the cartridge is often the last component to be upgraded as there's usually plenty of upgrading to do on other components before the cartridge starts to look out of place.

Your Pioneer will always be the weakest link in the chain, but hopefully in time and when funds become more available and you get the chance to listen to some better decks, you'll realise this for yourself.