Turntable for My McIntosh C2600

Good for you. I like this preamp a lot. Not the last word in resolution but very musical. Have you tried rolling tubes? 

I have a vintage pioneer direct drive repackaged and refurbished in burr magnolia to match the speakers. The Macintosh TT looks cool. I would go with that if you want to keep that glorious glow and cool look.

Since the McIntosh preamps have both MM and MC inputs, and the phono stages built into those preamps are very good, so you can use pretty much any turntable you wish.  Everything will "match."  Under $1000 for a turntable is a tough price point to match the quality of the C2600, however.  Recommend you evaluate goals and decide if vinyl is important for your system.  If the answer is YES, I recommend that you raise the budget for turntable + tonearm + cartridge.  Give yourself a $5000 turntable budget, and you'll get better results.  Again: if vinyl is important to you.

I use a 4K Technics SL1200G turntable with my McIntosh C2500.  IMHO, save your penny's and spend at least 2 grand, the preamp deserves it.

I agree totally with goheelz, do you have a large record collection? Buying a turntable for around $1000 with a cartridge leaves limited but good choices. Rega RP3 w/elys ($1145) would be my choice. You could check out a Pro-Ject Classic 25th anniversary w/ortofon ($1099). EAT (euro audio team) Prelude with a Ortofon 2M red ($1195). All these are great sounding tables with okay cartridges which you can upgrade later. goheelz makes excellent points especially the fact that it will take a really good TT/Cart combo to keep up with the Mac phonostage, I think 3k to 5K would be a much better range of tables that would enjoy the Mac preamp. Of course this is all dependent on you already having a great vinyl collection. Otherwise stick with one of the tables I mentioned.




Matt M