I'm considering getting into vinyl and purchasing my first turntable. I auditioned some units the other day, Pro-ject Debut III, Pro-ject I Xpression, Rega P2 and the Rega P3. I could hear huge differences between the Debut III and the Xpression, but I couldn't hear huge differences between the Xpression and P2 and P3. Don't get me wrong there were differences, but they didn't seem huge. What are your opinions on these units? I can get into an Xpression for $175 less than the P2 and $375 less than the P3. I know money is all relative, but for a newbie what do you think? I imagine in a year or two I won't remember the difference in the prices, but I will notice the sound quality. How different do you think the differences in the sound quality are?
Oh by the way the shop has 6 or so P2s left. They also had the manufacturer put the glass platters on them. The platter is included for the same suggested price of $495.
Unless you auditioned all tables with the same cartridge model, the differences you heard could be easily explained away and have nothing to do with the tables' qualities.
crl, this is a verrrrry deep topic. If you like the cart, and it seems a good value(so long as it doesn't stretch the budget too far), make an honest offer for one of the plentiful P2's. There should be some wiggle room there. Have the dealer change out a few cartridges for your buying pleasure.
I'm pretty sure the P2 and P3 had the same cartridge, but the other two had the stock cartridges. Would you ask to listen to all of them with the same cartridges? Is this a lot of work for them to switch out the cartridges? As you can tell, I'm pretty new to this stuff.
My experience has been that the 1Xpresssion sounds every bit as good as the P3 but does not have the same flexibility. Lots of aftermarket goodies for the P3 very few if any for the ProJect.
I have the ProJect and after putting in the requisite time for setup and matching it up with a cartridge (Grado Blue) that gives me the kind of sound that I like, I find it to be a very satisfying table.
A good dealer who knows you're serious about buying should be able to set the decks up with the same cartridges if he/she has an extra cart in stock. You should ask them to do this and make an appointment with them. Don't expect them to do this 'while you wait.'
As crazy as it sounds, I think the stock Ortofon cartridge on the Debut III is probably better than the Xpression's stock Sumiko. Retail, their's about a $10 difference between the cartridges.
Regarding the decks, I share the same opinion as Art does. While the differences in cartridges play a huge factor, I think the Xpression is every bit as good a deck as the P2 and even the P3. In stock form, I don't think the Xpression is much better or worse than the P3, just a little different. Sound quality aside, if you're the type of person who likes to upgrade and tweak things all the time, the P3 is probably the better deck. If you want a straight forward deck that won't scream out 'tinker with me,' the Xpression is the way to go.
However, IMO the Xpression with the Speed Box blows the doors off of the P3 in stock form. And, the Xpression and Speed Box combo is still about $75 less than the stock P3. To me it was a no brainer. If you think the Xpression sounds good in it's stock form, listen to it with a Speed Box attached. It's significantly better in every way.
Both tables sound great and are built pretty much flawlessly for their price. I honestly don't think you can do better for the money. If you listen to both tables and let your ears decide (and no one else's), you really can't go wrong.
Changing out cartridges on a fixed headshell tonearm can be a lot of work. And, what is the point if a particular table is sold with a particular cartridge. The other tables you are considering might not work well with that particular cartrdige yet offer superior sound with a different cartridge. That is hardly an unfair assumption at this price range.
I wouldn't actually expect most dealers to do this swap for me unless they knew I was very serious about the tables. Even then I don't really expect most dealers in today's turntable market would care to open four cartridges for an audition.
As odd as it might sound, I would suggest you try to listen through the cartridge to pick out the tables' inherent sound quality. Sit down with the dealer on a quiet afternoon and discuss what they perceive as the differences between the tables (and the cartridges) in the event they all had the same cartridge mounted. Get beyond the sound of the cartridge itself. Listen to a few selections and determine whether you are hearing what they describe or something entirely unlike their description. Listen for the inherent noise floor in the tables. This should be obvious with almost any cartridge used. Listen for the ease with which you can hear the music. Many tables present the music in a somewaht unstructured manner which forces you to listen more intently and alters how you perceive the music. Listen for speed stability and accuracy which will affect soundstaging. Listen for the separation of instruments and space. While this is a portion of what a cartridge will obviously affect, the table establishes the basic personality of the music. Listen for the depth and weight of instruments which depend on this quality for their accuracy of reproduction.
I think if you can spend some time with the dealer and the tables, you can manage to pick the table best suited for your system without even having the same cartridge mounted on all tables. Take my word for it, this has been done for years and years.
Should the dealer be willing to compare all the tables with the same cartridge, you would have the best opportunity to compare with far less effort on your part. However, I would not be put off by a dealer who flinched at the thought of mounting similar cartridges for a demonstration.
I guess I should say it should be obvious you must have some idea what you want to hear before you can pick which table best suits your system. If you don't know the particulars of what you prefer, spend some time thinking about this before asking the dealer for any more of their time. Until you are confident you can identify what you like when you hear it, you are going to be unable to make an informed decision. If you can't get beyond wanting "clear mids and tight bass", you need to think on the subject of what is important to you. Until you have a concise idea what sort of soundstaging you have compiled in your present system, you will be unable to identify that sort of sound even when you hear it. You may be impressed by a product which does the exact opposite of what your current system does. Buying a table which sounds good is not as important as buying a table which suits your system.
Until you know the part bass plays in bringing your system from being just another hifi to being a realistic sounding reproduction of the actual event, you cannot choose a table based on how it portrays bass lines. Whether pacing might be more important than fine detail retrieval is a decision you should know before you sit down to audition turntables. Is speed accuracy more important than speed consistency? And, so on, and so on.
If you are unclear on how your present system plays music, you might just want to sit and talk about such things with a good dealer for a while before spending any more money.
Thanks so much for your help. I'm new to vinyl so I'll have to think about all of your comments. I'm not sure if I understand about listening "through" the cartridge. Which parts of the sound are a function of the table and which parts are a function of the cartridge? Also I'm not understanding what you mean by: 'Buying a table which sounds good is not as important as buying a table which suits your system.' I am auditioning the table with the identical amp and speakers I have at home. Is this what you mean? I'm basically comparing the sound to my current system with my CD player and what the sound should be (live music). I guess what impressed me about the turntables and vinyl versus what I have in my current system is the depth of the sound. The bass came through much stronger and the sound seems more 3 dimensional. That's what I'm looking for from the turntable. Thanks for being patient with me. I'm trying to understand all of your comments and make use of them. As I said, I'm new to the whole thing.
Listening through a component means you try to isolate the functions and qualities of a single source. I would say it requires the knowledge of how systems sound and what qualities you prefer. All of that should be based, at least in part, on how music sounds. To you. And, here I will have to lead you to think a bit the way I think.
You should have that reference of live music and it should play a fairly large part in how you pick your system. I've said it several times on the forum but here it is again. There is something about live music which makes it different than a reproduction of live music. That seems obvious, but, if you think about what makes a live performance special, you will realize a quality of live music which can be found in almost any live performance of talented musicians. That reaches from the largest symphonic work to the simplest Appalachian minstral singing alone to herself. It will be the quality which makes the performance come alive for you. It will be what captures your attention and makes you stop to listen further. What that quality is will vary from person to person and will vary in its value. If you tend toward the analytical side of a system, you might find a totally different quality than someone who values the musical expression. But, I think you must know what that value is before you can piece together a system which works beyond its mere pieces. Identifying that quality for yourself and listening for that quality whenever you hear live or recorded music will get you in the habit of picking out what is important to you. Just as a photographer is always looking at other people's work and judging how to make the best composition when they view a scene, so should the audiophile be constantly judging music and how it is reproduced.
Once you've become familiar with that one quality, add another, then another. All of these qualities fall in an ascending order in what is important to you. Next realize any system, at any price range is a matter of trading this for that. No matter what component you purchase, you will have traded off some amount of something to gain a bit of something else. Know what you are willing to trade and in what amounts. Are you willing to give up midrange depth for soundstage depth? Is one more relevant to the audio system than to live music? Can you trade some pacing for some bass extension? Does the music you prefer have bass extension which warrants such a swap out? Do you prefer extreme detail or would you rather have a sweeter high end? None of these qualites are either/or propositions. They are trades which you allow to get what you want. Give up a bit of this to gain a touch of that. Then keep an open mind for what you have yet to consider. A better component should allow you to hear anew the music which you thought you had memorized. It should also makes more music accessible to you despite the recording quality. Never buy any component which limits what you will listen to.
If those concepts are clearly fixed in your mind, you can listen through the system to hear not only the music but which piece of equipment is responsible for its reproduction. You can hear the noise floor of the system drop when one turntable is substituted for another. You can hear the forward drive of the music or the laid back nature of the presentation.
The qualities which are defined by a turntable have been laid out in this portion of the forum several times. I'm sorry I can't point you to a thread, but read a bit and you'll discover what a turntable does. Separate that from what is obviously a cartridge's or tonearm's responsibility and you can listen through the components to pick out the turntable's qualities. Any salesperson who knows the components he or she sells should be able to help you with this. They shouldn't lead you with statements such as, "You did hear the bass extension on that piece; didn't you?" They should inform you of the basic character of the component or system and let you discover what is there by allowing you to listen, talk and ask questions. One of the best pieces of advice I ever received while I was selling was not to tell the client what they were going to experience. Only tell them what they had already witnessed. In the end the salesperson will have spent as much time, or possibly more, than if they had swapped cartridges. But, you will have learned something about the components and your desires and probably they will have done the same. Most importantly, they won't have several opened boxes to discount to the next buyer and they won't risk breaking a cantilever. Audio salespeople should be doing what they love and to allow someone to let them talk about the music and the system should be a pleasure. As long as you are leading the conversation and the demonstration in the direction you wish.
Do all this on a quiet mid-week afternoon when the staff can give you some time and a quiet environment. You don't have to buy something that day but that certainly should be your intent when you walk in the door and expect a large amount of time from the shop. This process should lead to a decision, not more confusion.
That leads me to my final point here. Do not get hung up on finding the "perfect" component. There really is no such thing. What you will eventually require, whether you wish to acknowledge it or not, is the perfect salesperson. The sales process should be a function of establishing what the client says they want, knowing what's available that can satisfy those needs and then demonstrating how the component accomplishes that task. Add and then eliminate only one item at a time. Work your way through the system methodically and you should find the component which will suit your system. That is when you become the owner of a turntable. Take it home and listen. Most shops have some policy which alows them to work with you after the purchase. You aren't birthing a child, you are buying a turntable.
As to, "Buying a table which sounds good is not as important as buying a table which suits your system", I think I'll leave that for someone else to answer.
One more question. I know that taking care of vinyl is extremely important. I imagine I'll need a record cleaner of some sort. Do I need to buy a $300 cleaner (that's the cheapest I've seen). What do you suggest? What are my options? Thanks.
You can buy the Disc Doctor machine from Audio Advisor. It sells for $200 and is a Nitty Gritty machine with a new badge. You will never eliminate pops and clicks as well as general surface noise until you vacuum clean a disc.
Pops and clicks are cool. I purposly did not clean my DOSM for the pops and clicks at just the right time. A source of reference that I owned, all by myself. And I know you have all done the same with your own albums.
Some pops and clicks will never go away, even after a good cleaning. (Nuck, you're not alone about the pops and clicks. See my response to your other thread.)
For someone just getting into vinyl, I'm not sure a record cleaning machine is a good initial investment. It's definitely worth it if you've amassed a record collection in the hundreds. But if you only have a few LPs, there are cheaper ways to clean them. Google "manual record cleaning" or "DIY record cleaning" or something like that. You'll have more money left to buy albums.
I would get the P2 w/the glass platter. The tonearm on the P2 is better than any tonearm that I have seen on a Music Hall/Pro-ject table. Rega's are built to last.