Which of these turntables should I purchase?

[Klaymoor]

I'm looking at a Stanton T62 and an Audio Technica AT-LP60. I will mostly only be using the table for basic playback of some old vinyls, no scratching or anything. The Stanton is more than double the price of the AT and I would need to buy a preamp; however, it seems to me like the Stanton is a little better, but most of the reviews on it that I have seen are from DJs. So, my question is, which of these turntables is better, based on my purpose for it and quality? Thanks!

[Richard Weenus]

Really... neither...

The Stanton has the short, straight tonearm with the straight headshell. This gives better stability for scratching, but the proper alignment of the cartridge across the record suffers. For this reason, you'd have to stick with a conical stylus and could never upgrade to fancier stylus shape that would be much better for playing records at home with better sound quality. Hi-fi turntables with a straight tonearm always have an angled headshell.

That Audio Technica AT-LP60 uses a DC servo motor with electronic speed control prone to speed drift. The tonearm is pretty crude on that also.

This table is supposedly coming on the market very soon at the $150.00 price point. It uses an AC synchronous motor, a unipivot tonearm with correct geometry, tracking force and anti-skate controls. It looks like it will be coming with a budget Ortofon cartridge that has an elliptical stylus shape for cleaner tracking and improved frequency range. Looks like it will be a great buy to me...

http://www.uturnaudio.com/

http://www.facebook.com/uturnvinyl

Other than that, about the least expensive turntable I could recommend for home use is the Audio Technica AT-LP120. It's a solid start, has everything you need...

http://www.amazon.com/Audio-Technica-AT-...+turntable

There are upgrades that can be done to the AT table over time... Thick rubber Technics 1200 mat for lower noise... there are upgrade styli available for the very decent AT95E cartridge that comes with the table... The USB / built-in phono preamp board can be bypassed for higher fidelity...

Just yesterday, I was at the Audio Technica warehouse sale. They had this table for $159.00. I should have picked one up for you!