£1000 turntable setup help

Clueless91

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Hey guys
I’m looking for my first turntable and have a £1000 budget and looking for some help or suggestions on what to get , I’ve done some research and so far have come up with this
Turntable: Fluance RT85 ( £500 ), Pro-Ject debut carbon eco ( £500 ) or Rega planar 2 ( £475 )
Speakers: q acoustics 3030i ( £280 )
Amp: Pioneer a400? ( £150 )
Is that all I need? Is there better bang for my buck you recommend? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers
 
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The Rega One System?
 
if you search through the ex demo and clearance sections of the main retailers there are a few bargains to be had -

here's an example -

Project Essential IIIA with Acrylic platter and OM10 cartridge £250


Rotel Tribute A11 £389


Monitor Audio Silver 100 £389 open box


A £1550 RRP system at a tad over the £1000 budget.
 
That’s an excellent package !!
 
@Clueless91 - to assist response how many records do you have to date and do you have any sources of music ?
 
Hi, I literally have no vinyls , cds or anything , looking to start now and by source I’m really not sure what that means sorry
Thanks
Be careful on buying vinyl, some new artists use the same digital master that is used for downloads and CDs. Good place to start looking at recording quality is here.


If you're looking for collectables then Discogs is a good place to start, better than flea bay as it's more of a community and poor sellers soon get called out.

 
If you have no LP's or CD's then being brutally honest I would not start to collect unless you have fairly deep pockets. Most LP's are £20+ each which is 2 months of Tidal Hifi (CD quality streaming) so 6 LP's per year then you have all of the music you could ever want at your finger tips through a streaming service.
 
If you have no LP's or CD's then being brutally honest I would not start to collect unless you have fairly deep pockets. Most LP's are £20+ each which is 2 months of Tidal Hifi (CD quality streaming) so 6 LP's per year then you have all of the music you could ever want at your finger tips through a streaming service.
I don’t have deep pockets unfortunately, I understand what you mean and you are probably right, too much of a money sink starting from scratch
 
@Clueless91 : Good decision you're making the right call.Assuming you've been into music in the past and will use the kit, I'd suggest an amp like the Rotel A11 in post 3 and speakers such as the Dali Spectres £180.

Test the water with Spofity etc most have trial or free listening and go from there. If you want to "collect" and develop a music collection I'd suggest a CD Player as CD's can be bought very cheaply nowadays and still sound great.
 
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This is a "One box" solution under budget. Includes Bluetooth for streaming and a CD Player.


Here's the Rotes Amp with some excellent speakers, cheaper but a much better system than the above.

 
This is a "One box" solution under budget. Includes Bluetooth for streaming and a CD Player.


Here's the Rotes Amp with some excellent speakers, cheaper but a much better system than the above.

Thanks for the suggestions, I’ll do some research into them and go with cds for now like you suggested and maybe see where I’m at in a year or 2 and maybe go vinyl then, thanks for going above a beyond with the help, appreciate it
 
I did similar to yourself 4-5 years or so back when I got my first hifi in years albeit I did have a large supply of CD's the remains of my teens vinyl and a decent CD Player. I bought a one box like the Marantz thinking it would give me everything...It did but with compromises. In hindsight I should've bought an amp with built in streaming which would've saved me some cash as I quickly upgraded later that first year.

I'd look at streaming first, You can get free trial and a number of them also have free App's eg Spotify and I believe Tidal. Apple Music often has a 6 month free trial and there's a 3 month on Amazon Music at the moment if you've not used their system before.

An Amp like the Rotel (Make sure it has Bluetooth) in the above package with some speakers up to £300 will sound great if you've not listened to a decent set up in a while.

I'd add the CD Player later if and when required.
 
If you fancy streaming as a main source then this package would be a good starter -

Yamaha RN803 - Streamer built in, decent DAC for Old Cd player at a later stage, even has a basic room correction system, an a MM Phono input and subwoofer out. Plus it has a decent amount of power to drive most speakers. Also available in silver as well as black if that's what you like.

Kef Q350 - very good stand mount speakers with a nice wide soundstage from their concentric drivers.

All for £999


there are also options with B&W 606s2's or Monitor Audio Silver 100's for a little more cash.

Depending on where you are in the UK its always best to get yourself down to a couple of shops and see what the various combinations sound like and what sort of deal you can do (free speaker cables is a good starting point). let your ears decide, especially on choice of speaker as this is where the sound will vary the most.
 
QA Concept 20s still around. Cracking little speaker for the price. Better than the 3030i, in my opinion of course, for the same outlay. Do you know what a faff vinyl is? Yes it is a big faff but I love it. As pointed by others not a cheap medium.
 
Hey guys
I’m looking for my first turntable and have a £1000 budget and looking for some help or suggestions on what to get , I’ve done some research and so far have come up with this
Turntable: Fluance RT85 ( £500 ), Pro-Ject debut carbon eco ( £500 ) or Rega planar 2 ( £475 )
Speakers: q acoustics 3030i ( £280 )
Amp: Pioneer a400? ( £150 )
Is that all I need? Is there better bang for my buck you recommend? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers
I’d echo a lot of the other replies to your question and think very long and hard before embarking down the vinyl route - especially as you have no LPs to start the ball rolling.
Streaming or CD is probably the best option. Plenty of used CDs for sale on line, at charity shops and car boot sales if you have the time to root them out. Going to a car boot to pick up some ‘cheap CDs’ is the main reason why my wife tags along on Sunday mornings!
With CDs to hand, you’ll then have two main options. CD player or convert to digital files and play on a streamer. This is what I do as I’m simply not prepared to pay £20 or whatever per month for a streaming service.
Amp and speakers to suit.
Let me know if you’d like any info about my streamer.
Good luck.
 
If you really want to start listening at some music then I think the suggestion of a Music Streamer + speakers sounds like the right one.
There are several options you might want to consider

Sonos Amp is a good option if you are not planning to upgrade in the near future with many sources - Sonos AMP & KEF Q350

Yamaha RN803 is a very good suggestion from @Ugg10 . I am an happy owner of the previous version R-N602. Tidal and Spotify streaming, bluetooth (even if not working well with Mac) and the wireless and multi-room function if you fancy spending some money in the future/

Adding a TT can be much cheaper that the options you put there if you are happy to consider something less fancy and second hand like Dual 505-2 and there are still plenty of used recordings you can buy out there
 
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Three weeks on and @Clueless91 still seems to be clueless. And probably fed up. Someone asks for a setup to start spinning records but is told he is wrong and "streaming" over Bluetooth (Shiver! 😱) is what he really wants? We can surely do better here.

 
@harkpabst - No one has called him wrong the advice has suggested that without any starting vinyl it’s a costly rabbit hole, which I know from my own experience.

Good find with the video clip. When my pal helped me pick some kit in the late 90’s he had a bunch of “Audiophile” mates who were exactly like that 🤣🤣
 
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Lowly R-N303D here, streaming over bluetooth is a last resort as Qobuz, Tidal etc are built in and if I stream from "my phone" the connection is via wireless and whatever FLAC resolution the tracks are.
 

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