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Originally Posted by MPizzle06
I have been looking at turntables, and have seen a good amount of praise for the Pro-Ject Debut III and REGA-P1. Both are a bit expensive for my budget but if I could grab a used one somewhere that would be awesome.
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$325 for a Pro-Ject Debut III with a good Pro-Ject preamp -
http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls....II-with-phono-
You could probably offer $300 and nail the sale - it's worth close to $600.
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So I have a few questions for bthose who wouldn't mind giving some advice:
-What entry-level pre-amps and amplifiers would you recommend? And WTF does a pre-amp even accomplish?
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Pre-amp takes the signal from the cartidige and amplifies it, just like your current receiver is doing. However most dedicated preamps do a far better and more accurate job with the signal, restoring the correct EQ curve and getting the right amount of gain (making it louder) so the receiver gets a signal it can do something with. When you use a preamp you no longer use the PHONO input on your receiver, but rather CD or DVD or AUX1 instead. They're not a necessity when you have a receiver with one already built in, but they do offer a substantial increase in performance and as such should definitely be a goal.
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-Do I need a subwoofer to go along with my ELS-3 speakers? And if so, which would you recommend?
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You don't need one, but it would certainly round out the sound a lot better and allow your speakers to deal with the frequencies they're capable of dealing with. Does your receiver have a subwoofer output and a crossover? If it doesn't, you don't get the sub. If it does then I'd recommend something from Elemental Designs, SVS, Hsu, AV123, Axiom Audio - they're all online dealers with great subs.
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-I've seen a lot of mention of cables and cartridges. I'm sure that these play a large part in the quality of sound you experience, but how large of a role? And again, are there any you would recommend?
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With cables it all depends upon your system. For most of us here there's no need to buy $500/pair silver-lined Nordost speaker wire, but if your components come to around $50,000 then it would be just as pointless to use $5 speaker wire too, regardless of what tests you might have read. For entry-level I can't see why Monoprice's $5 RCA cables and 14 guage speaker wire wouldn't be desirable and their prices are dead cheap.
There are UMPTEEN cartridges to choose from, with $20 cartridges available and $10,000 cartridges available. The Pro-Ject Debut III comes with the Ortofon 5e cartridge which I think retails for around $90. It's a nice cartridge and I would stick with it while you get into vinyl. A little ways down the road you may wish to upgrade, most people go to the Ortofon Red.
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-Also, eventually I'd like to get a pair of high-quality headphones. Are BOSE the way to go? Or are there others you would recommend?
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I'd recommend anything other than Bose. Bose are a marketing machine and spend very little on actual product research and development. Grado, Sennheisier, Denon, AKG, they'll all give you much more performance per $.
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-Finally, is there anything else I need for the set-up besides turntable, cables, pre-amp, amp, and speakers/headphones?
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Definitely! A carbon fibre brush is a must have, they're usually around $20. Most record dealers have record cleaning available - I'd pick up some extra sleeves so that whenever you get a record cleaned it goes into a new sleeve. Record cleaning is usually around $1/record. I buy my sleeves (Disckeeper anti-static inner sleeves and 2.5 outer sleeves) from Sleeve Town -
www.sleevecity.com - they have great product, probably have record brushes in there too. I'd also pick up a stylus brush - the Mobile Fidelity one is $9.
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**Price Range: For my entire rig (minus headphones) I'd really like to keep it under $1,000**
I'm sure this wouldn't get me a really high-quality set-up, just an entry-level one, but I just want a set-up where I can receive a noticeably higher-quality sound from my vinyl.
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Pick up the Pro-Ject and you'll be getting a much better vinyl experience, far superior than spending said amount on CD will get you.