I TRIED 1000 TURNTABLES! These are the BEST & WORST Record Players to Buy

today we're going to find out what the best turntable is under $1,000 we're also going to answer any questions you may have about what turntable to buy manual fully automatic belt direct drive what cartridge you need and we're even going to take a look at my personal collection and then I'm even going to show you an audio file turntable that you have to see to believe so a lot of times I get asked like what's a good entrylevel turntable and the first thing I have to address is all the novelty turntables out there cuz some people may just want a turntable with speakers built in and they'll get something like a Crosley or a victrola those turntables are just that they're Novelties even though they are the cheaper option think about it this way you're paying like $30 for record and you're playing them on a $60 to $90 turntable so that's not really a good balance of like media versus player so I highly recommend at least getting one over that $100 price point maybe closer into the $2 to $300 range that's the range I would tell you to look for your first turntable in the one that I usually tell people to look at is this one right right so this is the Audio Technica LP 120x USB there's all these letters after it that I can never remember but the 12x is a great turntable all the guys here have either had this or currently have this model not only is this a good firsttime turntable it's a good budget turntable right around that $300 price point but it's upgradeable and you can use it in the future oops and see it's bullet proof you have like a full curve tone arm you have an anti-skate you have a lift you have a like a tempo thing that I never use that you can just change the speed a little bit it comes with like a little plug-in light so you can see where dropping the needle at night you could put a $1,000 cartridge on here and thus you have a probably better turntable than a ,000 turntable with a cheap cartridge some other tables in that range that you want to look at is the Audio Technica lp3 So This falls in that same budget range you're in that $200 to $300 price point depending on the model some come with Bluetooth one of those models comes with Bluetooth too so you can add Bluetooth headphones this one is fully automatic so you have the start stop function and you have the ability to add whatever cartridge you want like we have a moving coil on this one might be a little Overkill but this goes to my point of you could have a less expensive turntable that has quality functions and a quality build and add a more expensive cartridge and make it a much better turntable than something that's just in generally more expensive with a cheap cartridge on it and this is a prime example of that fully automatic functionality with a nice cartridge it's a great way to go now stepping a little bit more out of budget getting up to about that $400 to $500 range is the next step up the lp5 a little more audio file no controls but it has some weight to it you can do 33s 45 78s change the cartridge out it's just a nice made direct drive table so when you pull the platter off here see there's no belt there's your motor everything turns from the center just drop that bad boy on there highly recommend this one I love this table it's great now on the topic of gimmick turntables there is one that I actually really love now I am pretty sure we showed this in the last video of the store tour but the sound Burger is so sweet so if you're looking for somebody especially somebody younger or teenager or something looking for their first turntable this one's portable you have a strap so you can actually take it with you on the go just take out this little clamp right here that if I turn it on spins you got uh you got a speed control here you can change the speed and it is manual and it has Bluetooth so you can use Bluetooth headphones it's great for somebody on the go who just wants to take vinyl with them like I don't know where you're going to carry the vinyl maybe a bag or something but like this is a slick piece of Machinery oh the turn arm's not moving cuz I had the lock one so that's another cool feature it actually has a lock so the turn arm locks into place so it doesn't go like flailing out like the time I tried to play the record like this and it just didn't work so you want something cool something a little novelty gimmicky but still sounds good s Berger it's a great way to go all right so one thing I also want to talk about is vintage turntables I have two of my favorite vintage turntables right here the Pioneer PL 530 and the morance 6300 now the nice thing about both of these is they are completely fully automatic so you just hit start and it goes you hit stop and it stops so that's one feature that was predominantly on the Vintage turntable so pretty much every turntable is either semi-automatic or fully automatic it was just like a luxury right just to be able to put the vinyl on and walk away and not have to worry about coming back and that's one thing that's missing on a lot of newer turntables so it's very few and far between that even do a semi-automatic lift now the one thing about those kind of tables is that over time there will be more maintenance involved because there's more mechanics in them but the Vintage turntables probably had a little bit better build from that aspect like these tables are nice heavy they have fullwood plants they have aluminum trim I mean they're just like a feast for the eyes and for the ears vintage turntables like this are a great solution now you will have to pay a little bit more to get a nice functioning vintage turntable and over time they are going to have more maintenance than a new turntable would so if you're not trying to match it with a certain system or a certain receiver going with a vintage turntable might not necessarily be the way you want to go because it's going to be a little bit more finicky a little bit more maintenance over time but I mean going with something like this I mean it's going to be a beautiful like eye-catching showpiece in your system my advice for if you're getting a vintage tap do it for the right reasons you're getting a vintage table to match it to something else or to stay vintage you're not just getting a vintage turntable just because it's cheaper right so you go online you find these tables that are as is and they're cheaper and you're like oh go with that you're going to need maintenance over time with that even if it's from anything from a belt to just the whole Mech going up and needing service so be cautious when getting a vintage table and just remember that it may seem a little cheaper in some circumstances but it's going to cost you in the long run or if you go with something like this it is going to going to cost you more up front I mean both of these tables are pretty expensive vintage turntables but they're going to last and will require maintenance but you're going to get your money at them I mean they're beautiful they're good sounding tables I would probably choose these two over pretty much any new one though except the luxman to say but you get a dose of new and vintage together that's a good point because the next turntable I want to look at is a new one from duel and it is fully automatic wood grain and like has everything except the silver and I think that's the perfect median right so like you don't have the maintenance of these but you have the looks and functionality of them in something new so that's I'm like super excited we have the very first dual CS 529 in the world right here and we're going to show to you now you can just just look right through the speaker that's why we have to clear speaker so you can watch them through the glass yeah that's true so this is the brand new dual CS 529 fully automatic turntable and what's really cool is du's coming back and they were one of the like vintage brands that were extremely popular and they were everywhere and they're doing things that other companies are not doing so here they have a wood plint and walnut you know it also comes in black but I just love the Walnut it's got a machined tone arm this is a high quality fully automatic turntable where it's just built really well the best I've seen in a high quality table has been like a semi-auto lift so this one comes fully back so watch you're just going to put this on what you want so you got 78 45 or 33 of course we're going to do that we're going to press this down boom start look at that table starts spinning and the arm is just going to go straight over and then I have it set up so I have to drop this little turn arm lift over here to get start playing so I'm just going to drop that and we're good to go so completely automatic and when it's done let me show you what's going to happen when it's done so I'm going lift this back up we're going to go to the middle act like we're at the end of the record it's actually going to lift up and come completely back at least that's what I think it's going to do that's what I need my life right there so this helps if you're you know so you don't have to be right by the vinyl this is like my number one feature that at least it lifts but this one comes back and turns off which is great so the other thing it has is the repeat function you can press the repeat button it looks good that's going to move in it'll lift up bam come back let's see what repeat does it's go down and then starts back up again so you're going to Loop your music it's gotcha dude that's sick I think this is the only new turntable out there that has all that functionality and it looks vintage so like what more could you ask for oh maybe one Bluetooth well it has that too so it literally has any functionality you would ever want you can even switch like the size of the record if you want for the auto drop up here you have the anti-skate up top so you can adjust that I mean it's a nice table so so the only one in the world right now they'll be out very soon and you can pre-order them on the website so the one important thing about this table and other fully automatic tables is that you can do just that you can hit Play Walk Away you don't have to worry about anything and with this one having the repeat function it'll just continue playing all day until you want to stop instead of it's just looping around in the middle of the record not that that really hurts anything but you know it'll give you a general wh in your needle over time and who wants that and who wants that noise coming from the speaker house can you add that sound effect yeah cuz I don't know if that's it uh so if you can't get a semi-automatic get something fully automatic or even better get this let me show you one more du so the Cs 529 that we just looked at in the showroom was a belt drive turntable and this one here is a direct drive so this is the Dual 618 Q same kind of stuff right you have your Walnut plin it's kind of a vintage looking turntable this is a high-end turntable from Dual it's reliable we've been using them for a very long time they're built very well and and this one's a direct drive and if you don't have a preference between belt drive and direct drive the real answer to the question which one's better is whatever one you pick because honestly it really doesn't make a difference unless you have a reason for it to make a difference I personally like direct drives and the only reason is I don't really want to mess with the belt does it sound any different I don't know sometimes people say you can hear the motors I never hear that so it doesn't really matter the decision is yours it it I I can't tell you one's better and you're going to hear all kind of stuff out there so if you don't want to listen to me that's fine maybe want to put in the comments why you disagree with me totally cool so this is audio technici high-end belt drive table the at lp7 and of course you got the belt right on the outside of the platter you can't see it there cuz it's black so I'll take it off there is there's the belt now I can't hit play that just kind of wraps around the platter like so and I'm really bad at this and that's why I usually use direct drive turntables you have there that say belts are quiet or whatever that's why you get something like this and this is a really nice turntable that's why we have it hooked to our like parasound jc3 preamp we have a moving coil cartridge on it so I do highly recommend this table it has a removable dust cover which people will either love and or hate at the same time but I do highly recommend really any of audio technical turntables they make everything from like entry level to to this one at some point in this video we're going to go look at my turntable collection which has an audio Technic actually two if you're a DJ you should get these now these are actually great turntables the Vintage techniques and even the new ones I'll show you my collection I have a new techniques turntable but like this is what a DJ would have even up till now I guess if DJs still actually use turntables and I doubt they do cuz all I see are DJs that are just using like computer programs which is lame so at least use a CDJ anyway your techniques SL1 1200s or SL 1210s like we have here are fantastic turntables they're super heavy they last forever whether you get a vintage one or a new one whatever this is what kind of turntable a professional DJ would use or anyone in their homes hey what's the most important part of a turntable cartridge duh technically this I mean well stylus or cartridge that would be yeah that's where I was going with this it's probably 50/50 between the two yeah I was trying to simplify it there for everybody just say cartridge yeah you had it right the first time the cartridge is the most important aspect of a turntable no matter what turntable you get my two go-to Brands always Audio Technica this is my favorite cartridge it's a moving magnet they have that whole moving magnet moving coil debate thing too we're not going to get into that today but I love this vmn 760 special line contact this like my favorite Audio Technica cartridge that's a moving magnet and then when you get to like the oraons you can do the oraons like the two brands that are competing against each other you could do like a 2m black you that would probably be in the same price range as that you could do like a 2m black they now come pre-mounted so you can put them right on your table so that's pretty cool and one of the most popular ones two in blue they just uh went all on sale now so they have new low prices on all those so they're super popular whichever way you go it's based upon taste and they do sound completely different that's a topic for another day but I highly recommend you put some kind of concentration of your turntable buying budget into a cartridge and not just the one that's on the turntable for starters the one on the turntable but then upgrade later it's almost like you could buy that turntable upgrade the cartridge later to something a lot better and it would be like getting a brand new turntable so that's why the cartridge is the most important part of your turntable so on the topic of cartridges another question I get asked a lot is should you buy a phono preamp and I think that's really based upon your system right so if you have a phono preamp in your receiver and you're buying an entry-level firsttime turntable or a budget turntable don't get a phone or preamp that really doesn't make sense buy a better cartridge before you get the phono preamp but once you get that better cartridge or get that better table and maybe you want to upgrade from that phono preum that's in the receiver that's where you would go out and you could get something like the Audio Technica pq3 which is a moving coil moving magnet preamp this would then allow you to upgrade to a moving coil cartridge which you can't do unless you have that specific preamp other brands make a Mofi makes a nice one I really love the parasound ones as well so they have the xrm which I highly recommend stereo switch Rumble filter switch so you ever have like where you're playing your vinyl and the speaker just kind of goes like this this will get rid of it so you turn that on bam gone moving coil moving magnet you can then switch between those well most receivers are only going to have a moving magnet photo preamp in them so to use a moving coil you need a phone a preamp that's my advice on those really it kind of comes down to when it's time for that upgrade or if you have a moving coil and then these kind of go up I mean you got the the jc3 that we have in there which is a sick phono pramp I mean it makes a huge difference in the sound but just remember to step up in the right order turntable better cartridge then hit the phono pramp all right so here we have like the top-of-the-line audio file quality turntable it retails for over $6,000 and we have a $5,000 audio Technic cartridge to go along with it now this luxman PD 151 is something that I would recommend as a top tier audio file choice for a turntable now yes there's more expensive turntables out there but I think it's important to get something that's maybe not a boutique brand get something reputable and the luxman name stands behind this turn table and that's why I chose this as my premium audio file turntable the top-of-the-line cartridge from one of my favorite cartridge companies the Audio Technica art 1000 that's about as high end as you're going to go it's a moving coil couple things about this turntable like you can see the build quality difference between like your typical sub $1,000 table right it's super heavy so it has tons of weight behind it all finished in a perfectly like grained aluminum every little piece of this turntable is done to perfection it buttons right in the front for your speeds you can adjust start stop right there you know you have the external belt and then what I do want to show you is underneath the record here I just want to show you how nice this platter is made so if you just want to look at how something has a pristine quality just look at the way the platter just glistens I mean it's all machined to Perfection so something like this you know you're going to put out a pretty penny over six grand for this one it's not even including the cartridge but you're going to get like the highest end product that you can find so my recommendation for an audio file table the pd1 151 that's not even their highest turntable and it matches all of our luxman components which just look absolutely amazing so CD player integrated the 507 and then turntable you make a whole luxman stack for about 20 grand then you got the speakers they don't make speakers though so I'll plug some other company like ke all right so now that we looked at like all these newer turntables vintage turntables and everything else I want you to know what I have and even though they're all not hooked up I have them back here because I like to show them all so one of my favorite turntables and I've done a video on this is the fender turntable so this is actually manufactured in the same Factory that does the fender Sunburst guitar so I just love the build it has a nice fender logo looks like a guitar super cool the second one in my collection is going to be the lp120 we talked about this being one of the best budget or entry level turntables and one you can upgrade in the future but this is one that's in a custom bronze it was only available at Best Buy in Canada for a limited time so a little hard to get but very cool so I want it in my collection I love that brand of Audio Technica which brings me to some of my other turntables which these are all of the sound Burgers so have the yellow the black the white which was at exclusive the original which is called the Mr discer super cool and then you have the limited edition red sound bger so I love the sound Burgers whenever they added different color they're going to be going to my collection I talked to you a little bit earlier about how I was scratching that's my custom scratch Pad scratch Pad looks like a Simon cuz I'm all retro stuff like this cassette deck I got here right this is the just audio yellow sl1200 M 750th aniversary turntable numbered all that stuff these things are pretty rare and I waited like 2 years to get this and talking about another rare one that's super cool this is the acrylic clear Audio Technica atlp 2022 so everything is completely clear including a limited edition stylus which if you take this cover off the stylus is a clear shabata stylist on there so the only place you can get them is on that table so very rare but you can completely see through it I really love the way that they did these clear turntables I just love clear stuff if you kind of like move the camera down into this you can kind of see like how the inside's built and as you like go up and down it kind of just reflects in the acrylic so that is my turntable collection let me know in the comments what's in your turntable collection and that's it for turntables don't forget about the Vintage guys I don't know I don't know where we go from here except to the next video

Channel: Just Audio

Views: 143,151

Keywords: best turntable, best record player, best vintage turntables, best turntable under 1000, best turntable under 500, best turntable under 300, best turntable 2023, best turntable 2024, best vinyl player, audio technica, audio technica turntable, audio technica lp120, luxman pd 151, music hall classic turntable, dual cs 618q, dual cs 529, dual turntable, best turntable cartridge, best turntable cartridge under 500, Best phono preamp, best turntables, record players

Id: TVshArAI0uQ

Length: 18min 43sec (1123 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 02 2023