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Enjoying "Affordable" Equipment

Having never owned a direct drive turntable, curiosity motivated a purchase of a Technics SL-1200GR2. I hooked it up to a stock Denon DL-103. Setup was fun and easy, no protractor required. Easy to understand tonearm height, VTF and anti-skate setup. All metrics were done to spec and VTF was exact without using a digital force gauge except to check my work.

After a brief warm-up the sound opened up and I say without reservation, it's been a while since I've enjoyed listening to vinyl this much. I am playing all my favorites; good recordings of original releases are truly special. More importantly, the price was affordable by today's standards.

The rest of the chain contains a Rhea Eclipse phono preamp, Kell Phantom preamp, Krell EVO 402e with all balanced interconnects and Harbeth 40.2 monitors.

I posted this simply to share an awesome experience provided by our great hobby and hoping to avoid the controversial topics often found on this forum. Thank you!

 

layton64
bassdude
488 posts
 

Well... those Technics turntables are highly reviewed by most... and none other than Frank Schroder considers the Denon 103 one of the best cartridges available.

One of the "Best Cartridges" Available

Great Sound from Denon vs Lyra Cartridge

After you get to a certain point in the "price/quality" ratio - there are almost imperceptible improvements in the sound quality - assuming you’ve done a good job at matching your equipment to each other, and you’ve got a decent room, or room treatments.

As I’ve discovered recently (posted in another thread on this topic) - I’ve got a very inexpensive system set up (i.e. Maggie LRS+ with an older Class D Audio amp) that produces amazing sound quality - when compared to my other far more expensive systems (e.g. ARC, Hegel, Harbeth, Linkwitz, etc., etc.).

Great Sound From Modest Systems

The same is true for vinyl systems.

agwca
108 posts
 

Well, my most affordable as well as downsized consists of Two Keces E40s, one using a Topping D70s driving Dali Opticon 1s MK1 with a small sub and the other an Aune X18th with a Sparkos upgrade and the separate Aune Linear PS on Triangle Zetas.  Affordability that sounds great if you don't need concert like levels.

Also have a Hegel h160 with Focal speakers which many here would consider affordable but I can enjoy any combo of the above.

 

coltrane1's avatar
coltrane1
715 posts
 

I’m very content with a Marantz TT15S mated to a Benz Ace MC cartridge. That’s only a $2k investment. On the lower end I’ve a JVC QLY55F mated to a ClearAudio Virtuoso V1 MM cartridge that delivers phenomenal performance for the price. I’ve also got 2 other JVC QLY7F turntables that would be excellent backups that don’t even get used. I had a thing for JVC TT’s back in the day. But the point is, there’s great performing audio available to the budget minded.

Ag insider logo xs@2x
ken7
52 posts
 

another alternative, Send your 103 to Zu for a new body. They know what they're doing and the difference between the stock 103 and their upgrade raises the 103 to a great cartridge

ak749's avatar
ak749
16 posts
 

@hilde45 You absolutely nailed it about room acoustics. I recently learned this lesson bringing home a $15k pair of speakers to upgrade my modest Martin Logan Mission 40's only to find the 'upgrade' sounded absolutely awful within my room. If anything, it proved the importance of room treatment and the fact that you can get great 'affordable' sound!

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