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I did and bought a Shure 97E and it now works Ok. I have not been able to get rid of it yet. Audio-Technica AT-PL120 Professional Direct-Drive TurntableThis turntable looks nice, seems nice, but it was hard to get to work and after a few months the stylus starts skidding across the disks. However, the "humm" that some reviewers comment is also present in my case. For the price, I would not buy it again and I would not recommend it. I modified the anti skating to 2.5 and 3.5 but it still did it. Then reading other reviews I found that shanging the cartridge may resolve the problem.
Audio-Technica AT-PL120 Professional Direct-Drive TurntableA great turntable, especially for the price.Amazon has the best price of all vendors I searched on the internet.
I was not disappointed at all. The sound was richer, fuller, and low level noise was reduced dramatically.If this turntable has a weak point, it is the cheap, awful pre-attached cabling that comes with the unit. what an improvement. Nice, fairly heavy aluminum platter, target light, direct drive, heavy (22 pound) base, decent quality cartridge/stylus combo, remote start/stop (if desired) on-board phono amp (I use my amplifier's phono amp), adjustable feet, nice quality (for the money) tone arm, etc.Do not hesitate to buy this. September '08 UPDATE: I've now had this unit for a little over one month, and am still very pleased with it except for a periodic cutting out of the left channel. My last turntable was an AR belt drive with a very good Pickering cartridge and stylus.
If you are willing to take a little time and effort, you can really improve this unit by changing the cabling. Like the other reviewers, I had forsaken my vinyl collection for CD's. After looking at all my LP's stored in the basement, I thought I'd like to enjoy the analog sound again. Overall, two thumbs up.
The only thing you may want to upgrade later would be the cartridge, but to my ears, the standard cartridge supplied with this table is more than adequate. There are differences, but the casual user will be very satisfied with the Audio-Technica PL120. As I initially was not impressed with the cheesy pre-attached RCA cables that came with the turntable, this was an opportunity for me to replace them with higher quality cabling.After a trip to Radio Shack, I removed the turntable base and then the pre-attached RCA cables in the unit. It took around an hour to do, and the parts cost was less than $ 5.00 (exclusive of the new RCA cabling).
I was really impressed with the internal build quality of this turntable and feel that as stated earlier this was a real bargain for the price.I closed everything up, and attached my new high quality (i.e., superior quality) RCA cables to the recently installed jacks, then to my preamp. Spend the extra and get this instead of one of those cheaper ($ 100) USB turntables. I installed RCA jacks on the base and soldered the connections. After a lot of research, I chose the Audio-Technica AT-PL120 based upon the reviews, the pricing, and the feature set.
At first, I thought it was my Yamaha C-45 preamp, but upon further inspection, I found the left channel output cable from the turntable had a partial short in it, close to the RCA plug jacket cover. If you can afford it, the Technics 1200 at twice the price is really nice, but is aimed more at DJ type use.This turntable has all of the features at half the price of the Technics. While I am not an audiophile by any means, I do appreciate the differences between the better quality equipment versus the run-of-the mill junk sold in outlet or discount stores.That being said, for the little money spent on this table, I really could not be happier. You'll be glad you did every time you put on one of your old LP's.
I bought it partly to convert my records to electronic format. The turntable's feet can be leveled, but unless I overlooked it, you'll need your own bubble level. This strategy is clear from the features. But heck, now that I've heard the results, I intend to play my records over and over and over. As other reviews have mentioned, the cartridge has a fairly heavy tracking force for the stereophile. I'm very delighted with this purchase.
I assembled it in a flash and wow, what a thrill to hear some of my old LP's again.As others note, this product is aimed at two quite-differnt markets: home users like myself and DJ's on a budget. Otherwise, this is just a fine, fine machine. It's almost disorienting to see something made so well these days. But as earlier reviews note, there are alternatives readily available on the market.Oh, one useful thing missing that I was accustomed to with my old Dual turntable - a bubble level for leveling the machine. I strongly recommend this turntable. Nothing about this unit seems cheaply made.
For example, the unit has a high-quality hinged dust cover but also a forward-reverse button.There are surprisingly few tradeoffs for either type of user.
I left the cover on the stylus until I achieved balance, despite what the instructions said to do. I used some RCA to RCA coupling adapters I had, and a short RCA to 3.5mm mini plug cable.I'm still using 2.5g for the weight and antiskate even though I noticed that the paper turntable lable said to use 3.5g. Too much chance to damage the stylus until you get the arm balanced. Use a light touch on the rubber grip rings at the rear of the weight when setting balance and tracking force. No hum and a nice full sound you don't get from CDs. I got rid of my old Dual turntable and most of my albums many years ago, but recently found a 30 of my old albums and some 78s my folks had. I got this turntable because of it's preamp and 78 speed.It's just great. I haven't tried it yet.
I just set everything at 2.5 grams. It works great so I can't see why to use more weight at the stylus.I highly recommend leaving the cover over the stylus when balancing the arm and turning off anti-skate until you have it balanced. Unbelievably easy with excellent results. You cannot tell it's off an LP. I'm very pleased so far. Playing the CD sounds as good as the record, no hum, no clicks, no pops. Easy to set up and adjust.I was blown away at how good the records sound.I hadn't played one in years.
Just take your time on tone arm balance step, set the weight carefully per the instructions to 2.5g and the anti-skate adjustment to the same.I'd highly recommend it to someone who wants something better than one the bottom of the line turntables.(mine is a refurb but works perfect and I saved a bunch)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Addendum 6/16/2008I just recorded my first LP to my laptop using Spin It Again 2.1. No hum, easy to adjust. Even the old scratched 78s sound pretty good.The next step is to rip the old 78s to CD for my folks. I had read some negative stuff here, none, of which seems to be true of the one I have.
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