But where from? The three sort of main household electrical sellers I think of when I need an appliance of some sort are Argos, Comet and Curry’s, but none of these sell turntables or hi-fi separates. They only sell micro hi-fi systems that are geared up for DAB radio, CD, iPods and USB playback.
After some investigation I find this site http://www.needles-and-spins.co.uk/ which has helpful FAQs on how playback from records work, that you need to amplify the signal from a record deck using a phono pre-amplifier before you run it into a line input on a normal amplifier. Then I started looking at the ranges of turntables available and found some that were pretty expensive like this one http://www.continuumaudiolabs.com/caliburn.html that retails at around £115,000.00 and some were pretty cheap, like this one http://www.ionaudio.com/ionttusb which retails for about £60. Obviously, I’m in no position to pay a whacking great big amount of money for one, but I want something semi-decent.
So I decided on this one http://www.project-audio.com/main.php?prod=debutphusb&cat=turntables&lang=en which I picked up for £259.00 from http://www.getinthemix.co.uk/ although they had a sale on at the time. It has a phono pre-amplifier built in as well as a USB connector so you can direct record any vinyl to a computer – something I probably will never do but it’s nice to have it. That’s quite an expensive thing for me to buy, so I don’t have any money left over for an amplifier or speakers, so I am planning on running this into a little Behringer mixer and outputting through a set of JBL ‘Creature’ speakers until I have some more funds.
I’m sure audiophiles will probably be throwing their hands up in horror at this which leads me on to…
