Advice on Turntable and cables

BennyBarrel

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Hey all, this is my first post on here though I have been reading a lot of threads over the past few months to aid in building my system (so thank you for that).

Thus far I have purchased the Denon DRA-800H Stereo Receiver and yesterday ordered a set of the Q Acoustics 3030i Speakers with the stands. The next piece of the puzzle for me is a turntable (I have only recently started collecting vinyl, only have 26 records so far) and wanted to ask for some advice please. I am very new to vinyl, so wanted to ask for some advice on the following please:

1. Any particular turntable you would recommend me purchasing to work well with the kit mentioned above? My budget would ideally be £300, though willing to consider going as high as £500 if a superb option is suggested.
2. I have a query around cabling, as researching online there are a lot of differing opinions on this. For the speaker cables I am considering picking up some QED XT25 cables, would these be a good choice or should I look at an alternative? And also with the HDMI cables from my devices (Xbox Series X, Sky Q box, eventually turntable) to the receiver, is there a particular type of HDMI cable I should be looking at purchasing please?

Any advice/tips offered would be gratefully appreciated.

Thanks,
Ben
 
Firstly cables for speakers - anything that is oxygen free copper (OFC) and 2.5sq.mm cross section will do the job - Kabeldirekt or Van Damme Blue from amazon is all you need. HDMI, amazon basics will do, it is a digital signal therefore for short round the signal will typically get there or it won't.

For turntable £300 is a good starting point -

for £250 this Project Essential IIIa is a good buy - older model but well regarded and comes with the fairly decent OM10 cartridge.


Rega Planar 2 is the usual go to around this price at £429 with Carbon cartridge (Hifix has open box fro £399).


If you have a search through the clearance section of Peter Tyson, HIFIX, Sevenoaks, Audio T, Richer, AVOnline, Fanthorpes, Harrow etc. you can often pick up ex demo or open box with discounts.
 
To play my vinyl (after not having a turntable for 20 years) was a Project Debut which I enjoyed before upgrading to a Technics. If you find you enjoy the vinyl experience then the first upgrade would be a new stylus. I have never had a Rega but lots of people on here rate them highly so I think Ugg has given you 2 very good options.
 
Firstly cables for speakers - anything that is oxygen free copper (OFC) and 2.5sq.mm cross section will do the job - Kabeldirekt or Van Damme Blue from amazon is all you need. HDMI, amazon basics will do, it is a digital signal therefore for short round the signal will typically get there or it won't.

For turntable £300 is a good starting point -

for £250 this Project Essential IIIa is a good buy - older model but well regarded and comes with the fairly decent OM10 cartridge.


Rega Planar 2 is the usual go to around this price at £429 with Carbon cartridge (Hifix has open box fro £399).


If you have a search through the clearance section of Peter Tyson, HIFIX, Sevenoaks, Audio T, Richer, AVOnline, Fanthorpes, Harrow etc. you can often pick up ex demo or open box with discounts.
Many thanks for this Ugg, a great help specifically in relation to query around cables. I'll take a look later this evening.

I've read only good things about the Rega Planar models, though have been reluctant to go that high in price. Perhaps I'll bite the bullet and just go for it to complete my setup (for now), thank you again.
 
Probably the best beginner turntable is the Rega Planar 1 which will be under £300, probably not the easiest to upgrade though....not sure the Planar 2 is that much of a bigger leap over the 1.

Over budget but the Planar 3 is what I would look at after the P1.
 
Probably the best beginner turntable is the Rega Planar 1 which will be under £300, probably not the easiest to upgrade though....not sure the Planar 2 is that much of a bigger leap over the 1.

Over budget but the Planar 3 is what I would look at after the P1.
Thank you for this, I'll weigh up which option best offers what I need for the time being.
 

Good deal here as mentioned above plus the Debut Carbon shown on the same page. I’ve have bought from SSAV and recommended
 

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