Beginner in Vinyl - How far should I go?

Go to Ebay and search AUDIOGON there are plenty of good TT and cartridges for 300 skins.

Lenny: If you want great sound on a low budget, then you have to be patient and wait for the good deals to come. I am currently using a Thorens TD125 MkII with an SME 3009 II arm that I purchased used for $219 shipped (Ebay auction). For a good budget phono preamp there is only one choice that I am aware of. This is the Radio Shack battery powered preamp (#42-2111) that is currently out of stock though. They can be found on Ebay if you search 42-2111 and they may be coming back to RS as well (mixed stories on this). The unit retailed for $25 and you will also need a 9 volt battery charger and two NI 9 volt batteris (charge one while using the other). I purchased the batteries and charger @ Target and figure under $30 (easy) to equip a singe preamp. I use two of these units as dual mono's (one per channel) with some special shorting and 100 ohm RCA's that I made myself, on the unused inputs/outputs, but a single unit used in stereo also sounds quite good and because it is battery powered is dead quiet. Anyway, I have just under $300 invested in this rig (the TT came with an Ortofon F15E II cartridge, plus I already had a Grado Silver). Compared to the Music Hall MMF5 that I auditioned twice there is no comparison (the old Thorens/SME combo whoops it badly). It took me almost a year of research and a lot of looking to put this together, but this is what was needed to keep the cost down. I would also put my old Thorens TD165 (with its stock arm) up against the $500 Music Hall that I auditioned (this would probably be a wash) and I paid just over $100 for this deck.

Lenny
Boychick listen to your uncle Dekay!I would buy a used Kidney if I needed it and he had one.The Arm alone blows doors on price of whole rest of the Music Hall.And while I might not think to buy the Thorens new at this price it's a great deal.

First, the cheapo units the big boxes sell tend to have proprietary cartridges that track at several grams, which is not healthy for vinyl and other living things. At the really low end, Technics used to make a few tables that took p-mount cartridges (much simpler to set up than your standard mounts, but a compromise all around) for maybe $150-200. Don't know whether they're still around. Next up the line are the basic Music Hall ($300, last I looked, which was a while ago) and NAD ($450, ditto), which is a Rega knock-off. Both of these come with cartridges installed (probably pretty close to correctly), so they're an easy route for the neophyte who isn't sure he wants to spend days adjusting everything under the sun. (Granted, that's part of the fun.)

Radio Shack sells really cheap phono pre-amps that will do the job. NAD's own version is $130. Arguably better.