Low-Mid Range Turntable Options

[O'Shag]

Hi JB3838,

Your budget is very limited at present. You're not going to get anything decent at that price unless someone is giving it away. You could always look at Stanton tables on the used market. You never know. People sometimes just unload stuff. If you could save some more money, then I can recommend an excellent table, but it'll be sort of hard to find. You'll have to check ebay or audiogon from time to time. The turntable was Mission's flagship, the 775SM. I owned one of these turntables, and deeply regret selling it, even though I have a $7,000 table now which is excellent. I had an Alphason Xenon arm and Stanton 881s cartidge on it. I also had an Alphason HR100S arm. The Alphasons are some of the best tonearms ever made, and are one piece Titanium. I can state that confidently because I now own two SME arms, one being a SME V tonearm, and the Alphason comes pretty darn close. In truth, with the table and arm I've just mentioned, you looking around the $1000 mark if you get lucky. The Stanton 881s is moving magnet, but is a good sounding musical cartridge ( I use a dynavector Karat 17D2 moving coil now). It is also not sold anymore, but sometimes comes up for sale at around $100.00. On the other hand, Sometimes the Thorens 125 comes up for sale and is less money, but the combination of the Mission 775SM (not the 775, its got to be the SM), and an Alphason Xenon or HR100s will sound way better..

Good luck