New to Analog and just played my first record in

Oh come on, don't go away mad. You must admit what you asked for may be just a little bit silly.

"I don't want to spend that much , but want to be sure I am not missing something special. I would spend $150 or so."

The point of your critics was they don't believe you can find what it is that is "special", assuming there is something, for that kind of money. Perhaps the responses were harsher than they should have been but their underlying reasons were well founded. On the surface it seems very simple but playing a record requires an extremely complex electro-mechanical system so getting to that special place probably isn't going to happen on your budget. Then again, maybe it will. I would get a cartridge and see.

In any case enjoy the journey. I can't remember who said it but it is something like "The beauty is in the walking. We are betrayed by destinations."

Herman

You're right. I have no idea if the cartridge is sounding its best or if it has lost significant fidelity.

After playing that one Sting LP I have heard enough to know that analog is indeed special. It sounded pretty darn good on a 20 year old table and cartridge. Yes, my CD player still beats it, but the gap is more of what I expected.

Still missing some dynamics and yes surface noise is an issue on the LP's I have.

It is fun to play records however and I am planning on doing some slight mods to my phono preamp and upgrading or replacing the cartridge.

Bill

Gwyn Thomas.

Grannyring, I'm right in the middle of what seems a long, long, road to getting my analog to sound the way I want. Tvad's experience mirrors mine, the only difference is, I have around 2,000 lps so I'm very motivated to get my vinyl setup right.

I think you could get a much better taste of what analog is about with a VPI Scout, Thorens TD160 or something similar. I believe you will have to spend at least 1k to get that taste.

Once you've gotten that taste, you may be in for a very long trail down a dark winding road. At this point, I would call the trail to analog bliss a trip through the wilderness. There are so many choices in analog, and making the right choice is damn difficult.

Perhaps my expectations are too great for analog, but I don't find it to be a plug and play instant bliss exercise. Cd players are plug and play, this is damn hard work! Be prepared for a long and difficult trip if you get bitten by the analog bug!

Sns has it right - analog IS a long hard road, especially if you've spent the last 15-20 years in the digital wilderness. Most folks ask what the path to analog nirvana is and the simple answer is there isn't one: however, I do believe one must spend in the $400-600 range to get an idea of what is possible from analog - a used Rega P[lanar]3 and a decent MM cart, properly set up will get you 80+% of the way there. Not to be cynical, but there's a reason why, when CDs first appeared, they (mostly) blew Joe Consumer's turntable into the weeds - cheap resonant plastic, poorly made with an extremely mediocre motor and needle is nobody's friend; at the same time, pre-recorded cassettes were outselling vinyl by a large margin (chew on that for a while...) mostly due to convenience, longevity and inferior LP playback equipment (sorry Bill, just like that nasty B&O you're hoping for something from). I certainly don't blame you for trying, but I do complain that you bemoan the fact that the POS isn't as good as your cd player...there is after all a reason why it was only $50. But, if you only have 5 records, why bother to spend the money? Hardware after all is merely a vehicle for the software at hand - I have 5000 LPs and 200 CDs, so it's pretty easy to choose where to put the money.

It is no coincidence that society has embraced the Ipod as well - cheap, efficient and functional - all the things analog isn't. Analog will forever remain a niche market as long as there is no demand (en mass) for anything better . With the advancements in video we see today, from hardware (plasma, LCD) to the software (Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, HDTV, etc, etc), it stuns me there hasn't been a commesurate demand for higher fidelity in the aural realm. The problem is, nobody gives a damn as sound (or noise, as I prefer) has become ubiquitous, and hence denigrated. Why is it that every public environment one wanders into today is "contaminated" with sound/noise?? One could argue that people are so conditioned by it, that without it the silence would be deafening to them (thus the need to carry a personal noisemaking doo-doo in the form of a cell phone/blackberry/blahblahblah). I could ramble on about this ad nauseum. Please enjoy the tunes regardless of your format - if it works for you, so be it. Cheers,

-Richard