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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
noromance's avatar
noromance
9,938 posts
 

Great system which will facilitate upgrading to a 1200G and better cartridge. 

hilde45's avatar
hilde45
5,071 posts
 

Glad to hear of your journey.

Discussions about affordability are heated sometimes because they often trigger people's pride or insecurities about their identity, if that identity is tied to wealth.

It's a shame, because I have been getting to know really experienced audiophiles and journalists of hifi a bit. They all agree with the following statement: "I'd rather have a $2k system in a good room than a $100k system in a bad room."

Since improving room acoustics -- somehow -- is not nearly as pricy as most gear, good sound is much more affordable than many people really know.

mahler123
3,410 posts
 

I bought the same turntable, with an Ortofon 2M Blue mm cartridge and a Cambridge Audio preamp.  I put it in a secondary system, my basement HT system, playing in 2 channel.  The intent was to move it to the big system upstairs after I reconfigured a few things to make room for the analog setup, but it sounded so good in the basement system (and the LPs are stored there) that it stayed.  Rest of the system is an Anthem 5.1 AVR and Silverline Panatella floor standers with a Paradigm sub.  Digital are a Pioneer Universal player, Apple TV, and Channel Master DVR.  
 I still love my expensive 2 channel rig upstairs but am spending more time down there

knotscott's avatar
knotscott
997 posts
 

There’s a lot of really good affordable gear. It’s wonderful when it gets discovered and enjoyed. There’s not necessarily a direct correlation between sound quality and money spent. I’ve never had much of an audio budget to work with, yet somehow my system evolved into a rig that I love the sound of, am proud of, and that I enjoy everyday. There is definitely a world of affordable and potentially excellent sounding gear if you pay enough attention. 

Sometimes you get what you pay for...sometimes the other guy does! surprise

layton64 OP
30 posts
 

I have had the Rhea Eclipse phono preamp for quite some time. I do recall when I first used it there was a dramatic improvement in my vinyl playback. That might be a big part of why the Technics is such an enjoyable listen for me. Also there is something special about the Denon DL 103. It is very unrefined but very enjoyable for some reason.

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