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Best turntable I've ever owned. My collection of classical music LP's has come alive again.
I did and bought a Shure 97E and it now works Ok. Audio-Technica AT-PL120 Professional Direct-Drive TurntableThis turntable looks nice, seems nice, but it was hard to get to work and after a few months the stylus starts skidding across the disks. However, the "humm" that some reviewers comment is also present in my case. I modified the anti skating to 2.5 and 3.5 but it still did it. Then reading other reviews I found that shanging the cartridge may resolve the problem. I have not been able to get rid of it yet. For the price, I would not buy it again and I would not recommend it.
Audio-Technica AT-PL120 Professional Direct-Drive TurntableA great turntable, especially for the price.Amazon has the best price of all vendors I searched on the internet.
I installed RCA jacks on the base and soldered the connections. After a lot of research, I chose the Audio-Technica AT-PL120 based upon the reviews, the pricing, and the feature set. After looking at all my LP's stored in the basement, I thought I'd like to enjoy the analog sound again. If you are willing to take a little time and effort, you can really improve this unit by changing the cabling. September '08 UPDATE: I've now had this unit for a little over one month, and am still very pleased with it except for a periodic cutting out of the left channel. The sound was richer, fuller, and low level noise was reduced dramatically.If this turntable has a weak point, it is the cheap, awful pre-attached cabling that comes with the unit.
While I am not an audiophile by any means, I do appreciate the differences between the better quality equipment versus the run-of-the mill junk sold in outlet or discount stores.That being said, for the little money spent on this table, I really could not be happier. My last turntable was an AR belt drive with a very good Pickering cartridge and stylus. Nice, fairly heavy aluminum platter, target light, direct drive, heavy (22 pound) base, decent quality cartridge/stylus combo, remote start/stop (if desired) on-board phono amp (I use my amplifier's phono amp), adjustable feet, nice quality (for the money) tone arm, etc.Do not hesitate to buy this. Spend the extra and get this instead of one of those cheaper ($ 100) USB turntables. Like the other reviewers, I had forsaken my vinyl collection for CD's. The only thing you may want to upgrade later would be the cartridge, but to my ears, the standard cartridge supplied with this table is more than adequate. Overall, two thumbs up.
At first, I thought it was my Yamaha C-45 preamp, but upon further inspection, I found the left channel output cable from the turntable had a partial short in it, close to the RCA plug jacket cover. As I initially was not impressed with the cheesy pre-attached RCA cables that came with the turntable, this was an opportunity for me to replace them with higher quality cabling.After a trip to Radio Shack, I removed the turntable base and then the pre-attached RCA cables in the unit. If you can afford it, the Technics 1200 at twice the price is really nice, but is aimed more at DJ type use.This turntable has all of the features at half the price of the Technics. I was not disappointed at all. I was really impressed with the internal build quality of this turntable and feel that as stated earlier this was a real bargain for the price.I closed everything up, and attached my new high quality (i.e., superior quality) RCA cables to the recently installed jacks, then to my preamp.
You'll be glad you did every time you put on one of your old LP's. There are differences, but the casual user will be very satisfied with the Audio-Technica PL120. what an improvement. It took around an hour to do, and the parts cost was less than $ 5.00 (exclusive of the new RCA cabling).
But as earlier reviews note, there are alternatives readily available on the market.Oh, one useful thing missing that I was accustomed to with my old Dual turntable - a bubble level for leveling the machine. I'm very delighted with this purchase. Nothing about this unit seems cheaply made. As other reviews have mentioned, the cartridge has a fairly heavy tracking force for the stereophile. But heck, now that I've heard the results, I intend to play my records over and over and over. I assembled it in a flash and wow, what a thrill to hear some of my old LP's again.As others note, this product is aimed at two quite-differnt markets: home users like myself and DJ's on a budget.
Otherwise, this is just a fine, fine machine. It's almost disorienting to see something made so well these days. The turntable's feet can be leveled, but unless I overlooked it, you'll need your own bubble level. This strategy is clear from the features. For example, the unit has a high-quality hinged dust cover but also a forward-reverse button.There are surprisingly few tradeoffs for either type of user. I bought it partly to convert my records to electronic format.
I strongly recommend this turntable.
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