Turntable Suggestions

[TSCfree]

I stream most of my music these days and generally listen to the radio on the go, in the car and whist doing other things. I took an hour out of my day this morning to sit down and actually listen some music with headphones on and the experienced whisked me back to teenage years and actually enjoying music. I can still remember listening to my parents vinyl copy of Dark Side of the Moon/The Wall and being utterly immersed.

A quick look at HMV shows quite a decent selection of new music on vinyl these days, albeit pricey and of course there's ebay for the older stuff.

So, I'm after recommendations for a second hand table with built in amp for use with some headphones.

TIA

[miniman]

Budget?

Set my mother up with a TEAC turntable and Cambridge Audio amp for a few hundred.

Good review of the new Sony turntable on T3 this week.

Otherwise it's a Pro Ject and a headphone amp, I would say.

[TSCfree]

I think a couple of hundred for the table/amp which leaves the same again for some Bose headphones. So all in about £400 max.

[lostmotel]

The problem with cheap turntables is they can have a very high tracking force and can make a meal out of the (as you say, very expensive) LPs you put on them. If you want brand new, then you can get a Pro-Ject Elemental for about £160 from Richer Sounds. This will be far superior to any of the cheaper decks with USB out and other gimmicks, and is also upgradeable with higher quality cartridges, power supplies, carbon tonearms etc.

For amplification you will need a phono stage and a headphone amp. Pro-Ject and Cambridge Audio do phono stages for around the £50 mark, and I have heard very good things about Beresford headphone amps (never been into headphone listening so can't say much about them), but they may be a bit out of your budget.

Alternatively you could look on eBay for a hifi amplifier with a phono stage and headphone output.