Looking for my first turntable

Is this an actual Gun Shop you mentioned, like real guns:D

Yes RP, there's a veteran(maybe >100years old) Gun Shop just outside the Metro stn. One can see various guns on display there. I like this shop because of it's old world look. It looks same probably the day it opened.

Regards

Bhaskar
 
The tonearm lead PCB looks a bit like this:

31_newwiresbundled.jpg


The cables are stock, twin RCAs with an additional earthing wire. I have not upgraded anything yet, still running in stock condition.

Guys, this is similar to what I have now, the 1st and 2nd items in this list

TECHNICS RCA PHONO CABLE LEAD CORD SL1200 SL1210 SL 1200 1210 | eBay

seems spares are available, but observe that for 1200 series they are selling with a small pcb board TECHNICS 1200 1210 RCA PCB BOARD+1M PRE SOLDERED RCA COMBO | eBay , wonder if that applies for 3200, may be Reuben can comment from his 3200.



Also are these good as stylus cleaners?

Antistatic Vinyl Record stylus Cleaner Fluid +Brush ACC-SEES APV003 | eBay

Audio Technica AT607 Stylus Cleaner Fluid, AT 607 | eBay

Another find, 10m RG174 Cable RF Connections | eBay is this the RG-174 that you guys are talking off?
 
IMO I think youre kind of jumping the gun talking about upgrades before youve even got started. I suggest you get a decent cart, fit it up, clean and dust up and be ready to play. Concentrate on the CNC phonostage and its relationship with your amp. Then sit back, listen for days/weeks/months and enjoy your TT sing. Once you are familiar with its sound signature then look at tweaks and upgrades. Very important with upgrading is that you know the starting point well. Hence take some time to get used to your TTs sound as it it. Remember, what benefits cable tweaks, etc can bring is highly subjective. A 0.01% - 0.5% improvement in sound quality is hard for the human ear to comprehend unless youre really familiar with the starting point. Jumping straight into upgrades is entering dangerous territory. Ive known a guy who took this approach, changing his stock cables on the TT to more expensive cables, and what not, only to visit his friend and get extremely disappointed when he heard the friends TT playing with stock cables and apparently sounding better. Remember a lot depends on the vinyl you play as well. The dependencies are many. Familiarity with the format is a must for tweaks and upgrades, or youre likely to be disappointed and join the elite club of guys who dived into vinyl for making comparisons with CD and came out disappointed because they did not get it right. :)
 
IMO I think youre kind of jumping the gun talking about upgrades before youve even got started. I suggest you get a decent cart, fit it up, clean and dust up and be ready to play. Concentrate on the CNC phonostage and its relationship with your amp. Then sit back, listen for days/weeks/months and enjoy your TT sing. Once you are familiar with its sound signature then look at tweaks and upgrades. Very important with upgrading is that you know the starting point well. Hence take some time to get used to your TTs sound as it it. Remember, what benefits cable tweaks, etc can bring is highly subjective. A 0.01% - 0.5% improvement in sound quality is hard for the human ear to comprehend unless youre really familiar with the starting point. Jumping straight into upgrades is entering dangerous territory. Ive known a guy who took this approach, changing his stock cables on the TT to more expensive cables, and what not, only to visit his friend and get extremely disappointed when he heard the friends TT playing with stock cables and apparently sounding better. Remember a lot depends on the vinyl you play as well. The dependencies are many. Familiarity with the format is a must for tweaks and upgrades, or youre likely to be disappointed and join the elite club of guys who dived into vinyl for making comparisons with CD and came out disappointed because they did not get it right. :)

Yes even I think upgrades should be done very slowly and steadily..after getting familiar with the equipment thoroughly. Upgrading it right till the limit from the word go can be interesting at first. However, it gets boring later on. You don't get to experience the change little by little. Plus once you get the best set up right in the beginning then by definition, the lesser upgrades you can make in future. Experience the current setup (assuming you have a considerably good sounding system) and then when it feels right, make some sort of upgrade

I remember how i started with listening to music on tapes, radio, then progressed to mp3s on computer/ipods..after that i started buying CDs..and now i listen to music on a decent turntable :) Maybe someday, I'll make some more upgrades (I'm working on upgrading my phono stage..but I'm giving myself for time for it)..but for now I'm satisfied with my current setup.
 
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IMO I think youre kind of jumping the gun talking about upgrades before youve even got started. I suggest you get a decent cart, fit it up, clean and dust up and be ready to play. Concentrate on the CNC phonostage and its relationship with your amp. Then sit back, listen for days/weeks/months and enjoy your TT sing. Once you are familiar with its sound signature then look at tweaks and upgrades. Very important with upgrading is that you know the starting point well. Hence take some time to get used to your TTs sound as it it. Remember, what benefits cable tweaks, etc can bring is highly subjective. A 0.01% - 0.5% improvement in sound quality is hard for the human ear to comprehend unless youre really familiar with the starting point. Jumping straight into upgrades is entering dangerous territory. Ive known a guy who took this approach, changing his stock cables on the TT to more expensive cables, and what not, only to visit his friend and get extremely disappointed when he heard the friends TT playing with stock cables and apparently sounding better. Remember a lot depends on the vinyl you play as well. The dependencies are many. Familiarity with the format is a must for tweaks and upgrades, or youre likely to be disappointed and join the elite club of guys who dived into vinyl for making comparisons with CD and came out disappointed because they did not get it right. :)

Reuben, I do appreciate your advice and want to let you know that at this point I am jumping (which you have rightly pointed out) to get more upgrade suggestions rather than doing the actual upgrades. Out of around 10 suggestions that I got so far (thanks to all of your suggestions over such a short time), I have eliminated the ones that are risky and not easily do-able (like replacing RCAs, replacing stock cable, replacing rubber feets, replacing rubber mat, etc) and only going forward with the those that seem less risky (WD-40, Cart, Headshell, cleaning liquids) and of course less costly (opted for battery powered CNC instead of the one with additional power supply). Raghu (he is building CNC for me) is aware of how afraid I was to even replace the cart, thanks to his telephonic advices.

At this point, the CNC will not arrive until this weekend and the cart will not arrive until the next week so the TT is just an equipment with a moving platter. So would prefer to do some easy upgrades (than purposefully not doing it) in areas that does not provide me confidence hoping that those will possibly elevate the starting point. Starting point is something I already have with my existing TTs where the negative difference with my high-res digital music chain is noticeable. Whether my ears will be able to differentiate between the digital and revamped analogue setup I still do not know but hope is something on which the whole world is moving ?

Please do not stop giving the wonderful suggestions and let me learn in the process
 
fantastic, you're on the right track, with the right equipment and the right approach.

Reuben, I do appreciate your advice and want to let you know that at this point I am jumping (which you have rightly pointed out) to get more upgrade suggestions rather than doing the actual upgrades. Out of around 10 suggestions that I got so far (thanks to all of your suggestions over such a short time), I have eliminated the ones that are risky and not easily do-able (like replacing RCAs, replacing stock cable, replacing rubber feets, replacing rubber mat, etc) and only going forward with the those that seem less risky (WD-40, Cart, Headshell, cleaning liquids) and of course less costly (opted for battery powered CNC instead of the one with additional power supply). Raghu (he is building CNC for me) is aware of how afraid I was to even replace the cart, thanks to his telephonic advices.

At this point, the CNC will not arrive until this weekend and the cart will not arrive until the next week so the TT is just an equipment with a moving platter. So would prefer to do some easy upgrades (than purposefully not doing it) in areas that does not provide me confidence hoping that those will possibly elevate the starting point. Starting point is something I already have with my existing TTs where the negative difference with my high-res digital music chain is noticeable. Whether my ears will be able to differentiate between the digital and revamped analogue setup I still do not know but hope is something on which the whole world is moving ?

Please do not stop giving the wonderful suggestions and let me learn in the process
 
Do I need the following to ensue proper tracking force setup and cart alignment (result of my youtube study)
1. Digital vernier scale to ensure that the two screws are going the same length on both sides of the headshell down to the cart
2. Mini weighing scale to ensure that vertical tracking force is precisely what is recommended in cart specs? upto 0.01 grams.
3. Bubble level for levelling.
 
Do I need the following to ensue proper tracking force setup and cart alignment (result of my youtube study)
1. Digital vernier scale to ensure that the two screws are going the same length on both sides of the headshell down to the cart
2. Mini weighing scale to ensure that vertical tracking force is precisely what is recommended in cart specs? upto 0.01 grams.
3. Bubble level for levelling.

I am not sure about #1 but yes #2 & 3 are required. #3 is most important. #2 is required when you don't trust the tonearm bias and balance weight calibration. Generally on unmodified and OEM tonearm I found it under acceptable limit.
 
I am not sure about #1 but yes #2 & 3 are required. #3 is most important. #2 is required when you don't trust the tonearm bias and balance weight calibration. Generally on unmodified and OEM tonearm I found it under acceptable limit.

+1 to omishra.

Screws going down equal depth is probably to ensure azimuth doesn't get unequal pressure. I think most gimballed bearings are robust enough not to be affected by the tiny weight of the screws (about half of 0.5 grams each?). Things could be a bit different on unipivots. Bottomline: don't bother with this.

Digital scale is a MUST-have, in my opinion. And it's cheap. Example here. But it can make your arm balancing process that bit longer because you will want to achieve a tracking force of 1.50 gram (example) instead of 1.53 grams:)

Bubble level is another MUST-have. Again, it's cheap. Any hardware store will have it. About Rs 200.

While we are at this, why not get yourself a nice antistatic record brush too? Also, get yourself a soft easel brush used by painter to clean your stylus.
 
Thanks jls, I have already ordered them from ebay only, found a cheaper 0.01 gm precision for around 200.

One thing about using the vernier, what I meant is that the cart is held (rather hanged) from the roof of the headshell with two screws on either sides, so if we have uneven number of turns on both the screws then the cart / stylus will not be perfectly vertically touching the record grooves even if we level the headshell or the tonearm correct? So correcting them with bare eye precision is what I thought could be avoided by the caliper.

On cleaning aspect here is what I already have.

08052012163.jpg


Two bottles of liquid with sprayer and one carbon brush and one velvet brush. The composition of the liquid is Propan-2-ol, <5% anionic surfactant

Let me know what else I should be having and I shall try getting them
 
Thanks Sachin, I think I read somewhere that the Shure cart box also contains a paper protractor. will let you know once it arrives
 
Thanks Sachin, I think I read somewhere that the Shure cart box also contains a paper protractor. will let you know once it arrives

Hello Saikat,

The Shure M97Xe package does include a paper protractor. But be informed that not all Shure cartridge packages contain the protractor.

Regards,
Saket
 
Hello Saikat,

The Shure M97Xe package does include a paper protractor. But be informed that not all Shure cartridge packages contain the protractor.

Regards,
Saket

M97XE is what I have ordered, thanks for reconfirming.
 
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