You may want to consider the VPI jr as they sell for around $500 used with arm and cartridge. The jr has good upgrade potential as the Music hall tables don't besides the VPI sounds better but this is just my opinion. There are many $100-$200 phono pre out there to get you started and when funds permit you can upgrade. Another approach to this is save your money as your budget for table, arm, cart, and phono stage is a bit of a stretch! I did the exact same thing as you on a simular budget and pretty much wasted money when I should have held out a bit longer for a better rig, but if you must have now you do have a few choices to go with, Good Luck with your TT journey, It's fun!
starting from just about scratch w/ $600 to spend
I'm just getting back into vinyl and currently have a old Technics TT, SL-1950, one corner proped up by CD's cause the foot is missing (I bought it for $15 at a tag sale) and a grado prestige red cartride with about 15 hrs on it.
I just bought a Bryston B60 int amp w/o the phono stage, so I def need to spend part of my money on that. My speakers are signet sl280ex.
So how much and what would you spend on TT/cart/phono pre. It looks like I can get entry level used MMF-5 or NAD 533 with cart for ~400, leaving $200 for phono stage. Are those $200 carts they come with really that much better than my grado?
Or should I buy a more stable vintage DD TT (with feet intact lol) for ~100, and spend the remaing $500 on cart and phono pre. ie, Are the cart and phono pre more important at the price points I'm looking at?
I can go a little over budget if it gets me considerable sound quality upgrade in return.
There seems to be quite a few budget phono pre's around, and I have no way of ABing them, so I could really use opinions on that.
I just bought a Bryston B60 int amp w/o the phono stage, so I def need to spend part of my money on that. My speakers are signet sl280ex.
So how much and what would you spend on TT/cart/phono pre. It looks like I can get entry level used MMF-5 or NAD 533 with cart for ~400, leaving $200 for phono stage. Are those $200 carts they come with really that much better than my grado?
Or should I buy a more stable vintage DD TT (with feet intact lol) for ~100, and spend the remaing $500 on cart and phono pre. ie, Are the cart and phono pre more important at the price points I'm looking at?
I can go a little over budget if it gets me considerable sound quality upgrade in return.
There seems to be quite a few budget phono pre's around, and I have no way of ABing them, so I could really use opinions on that.