Best Vinyl Record Player

Since my old one is broken and apparently non-fixable I'm looking for a really cool new turntable that has a great sound, can rip to the computer, is fairly small and not too expensive.

I haven't bought one, the one I had is a hand-me-down, so I'm kind of new when it comes to buying them. If I'm being too specific go ahead and just tell which one you think is best.

Thanks guys.

- The Truth

I have an Ion turntable.

Sheavey: what problems does that one have? It looks like it has the standard USB turntable features, which are always more hassle than ripping CDs.

Here is the one I purchased last year. It has had some very good reviews especially when it was introduced at CES 2 yrs ago. I wanted USB and this one has built in preamp so you can also use as line in if your amp/receiver does not have phono inputs. Its modeled after the classic Technics SL1200 series turntables, its very heavy which I like in turntables. My only complaint is the cartdridge included tracks at a heavy 3-5grams...so you might want to get another one. I just ordered a new cartridge....The supplied one is excellent though, it is made for DJ'ing.

Thanks guys, I'll check out each one and see which I like best. And then I'll try to rack up some dough for it. 

My first one was a plastic fold up doohickey with speakers on the side.  It had a reasonable sound quality and I was still using it when I got into prog.  My second was a used Dual in a real wood frame.  That was sweet.  I went for a long spell without ever playing a record and finally got a Denon, which I am not totally happy with because you have to manually drop the needle if you want to hit a specific track.  I used it to copy some out of print LPs digitally to make CDs.  There's some relatively inexpensive software called Audio Cleaning Lab I used to suppress scratch noises and break what I recorded into tracks.  All the stuff I copied I went audio to audio (no USB).  The Denon does have a preamp switch.  The old amp I was using it with died and it went idle for a while.  I recently did get a USB interface but the turntable belt appears to have worn out as it doesn't stick to speed.  We'll see how that works out in the next couple of months or so when I get a replacement.  I found my wife's old turntable in storage (we're clearing out a unit).   I may have to try that one out.

Dean's advice sounds solid.  I suspect all in ones would tend to be shoddy.


Edited by Slartibartfast - July 05 2011 at 06:57

Question for those who know, I'm guessing Dean:

My original set up for making computer copies was to run the turntable into an old amp with a phono input, take the double line out from that and connect it to a Y that combined those into a single stereo plug in that I could pop into sound card line in.  Worked quite well until the amp died.