Bought two turntables yesterday, which one is better?

EDUBAG

HELLO GUYS,

YESTERDAY I BOUGHT LOCALLY (MIAMI) A KENWOOD KD-41RB AND A PIONEER PL100 TURNTABLES.

I HONESTLY DO NOT KNOW MUCH ABOUT TURNTABLES, BUT I AM PRETTY SURE THAT BUYING ONE IS THE FIRST STEP...LOL.

I CANNOT FIND A LOT OF INFO ON EITHER OF THESE SO WAS WONDERING IF YOU...THE MORE VINYL KNOWLEDGEABLE GUYS OF THE FORUM WERE FAMILIAR WITH THE MODELS, AND COULD TELL ME WHICH MODEL IS BETTER.

BY THE WAY I PAID 35 BUCKS FOR THE TWO OF THEM AND THE SELLER GAVE ME 2 RECORDS AS WELL. HOPEFULLY I WILL BE ABLE TO PAY MY MORTGAGE THIS MONTH AFTER THIS HEFTY INVESTMENT...:biggrin::biggrin:

THANKS IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR HELP,

EDUARDO

quadzilla

PL100 http://www.vinylengine.com/library/pioneer/pl-100.shtml

Not really having any luck on the Kenwood. Best I can suggest is make sure the cartridges are aligned on both, and see which one you like better.

erniejade

I think the kenwood was a strait arm P mount turntable and the pioneer was a S arm correct? I think looks like if memory serves me right the pioneer looks like a heaiver duty turntable the the kenwood. I though ( wow this is going back ) the kenwood was one from a rack stereo that came with a cart.

What cartridge is on each of them?

Tour2ma

EDUBAG,
First, please no caps lock... Thanks in advance.

erniejade wrote: »

I think looks like if memory serves me right the pioneer looks like a heaiver duty turntable the the kenwood. I though ( wow this is going back ) the kenwood was one from a rack stereo that came with a cart.

Give that man a cigar... Kenwood did a lot of rack systems. Not being able to google any info on a TT makes it a good bet that it was part of a rack package.

Odds are very good that the Pioneer is the better of the two. It is "OK" at best. In part that's just me not being a fan of lightweight platters.

Polkie2009

Ed, lol, did you happen to get 2 turntables and a microphone? JK:) Had to ask. Sounds like you did pretty well there!

EDUBAG

ok tour,

no caps just for you (you must be an english teacher). is ok for them to be "ok" i mean i paid 35 bucks for both and the kenwood has a stanton cartridge that is probably worth more than that.

i just want a table to get me into the vinyl hobby and then get a more "aproved by peers table" jajaja

as long as they sound ok and can get the vibe of vinyl, then they did their job.

Tour2ma

^^LOL... never occurred to me... Odelay...

^Thanks for the caps off... English teach? Not hardly... just a poor old engineer.

Stanton made some fairly popular cartridges in its day. Might still be able to get replacement stylii for it.

So what LP's did you nab?

lakesailor

When in doubt go with the heavier of the two.....

EDUBAG

well guys i finally got them into my rig.

and to be honest now i am more confused than before, i like the kenwood in the sense that is a more simple design (it has a stanton 720 cartridge on it) and it seems to be in the better condition of the two.

however i tried the pioneer as well with a stanton 500 cartridge and i liked the sound better, but it picked up a lot more pops and crackels than the kenwood.

the pio tt brought a shure n55 cartridge without a needle and when looking on the web, the needle costs around 45 buck (more than the turntable).

so i have to wonder, if i change the cartridge in the pio tt with lets say grado black, or ortofon red 2m, how much better sound quality would i get?

xj4094dg

Pics!

Tour2ma

EDUBAG wrote: »

and to be honest now i am more confused than before, i like the kenwood in the sense that is a more simple design (it has a stanton 720 cartridge on it) and it seems to be in the better condition of the two.

however i tried the pioneer as well with a stanton 500 cartridge and i liked the sound better, but it picked up a lot more pops and crackels than the kenwood.

the pio tt brought a shure n55 cartridge without a needle and when looking on the web, the needle costs around 45 buck (more than the turntable).

so i have to wonder, if i change the cartridge in the pio tt with lets say grado black, or ortofon red 2m, how much better sound quality would i get?

Confused? Welcome to vinyl... :biggrin:

First on the Shure...
I think you're looking at an M55E (or EM) Cartridge. N55 refers to the replacement stylus.

I'm seeing N55 stylii for $20 at Radio Shack... So the $20 question is, "Is the cartridge any good?" A VOM check for continuity across any pair of output posts (should not be any) would check one possible one way it could be bad, but cannot guarantee it's good.

That said... It was not all that well regarded even in its day, so I'd do the VOM check and if it does not show bad, I'd ebay it. You might get a few bucks.

On the Stantons...
The 720 that came on the Kenwood may well be shot... thus the duller sound including ignoring the surface noise. But also could be a set up issue or a bit of oxidation at the plug-in or other...

The site Keiko mentioned has the data:
http://www.vinylengine.com/cartridge_database.php

Where did the 500 came from?

As for the "pops and crackles"... they're due to condition of the LP being played. A new cartridge isn't going to lessen them. A good cleaning might help some depending on level of dirtiness vs damage.

EDUBAG

Keiko wrote: »

The Pioneer PL-100 used to be part of my first real rig back in the day. Not a lot of bells & whistles, but a solid deck. I used mine for years before passing it along to a very cool polkie awhile back. The Shure M97xE should mate really well with it. jr.com has it for 55.00 w/free shipping.

http://www.jr.com/shure/pe/SHU_M97XE/

vinylengine is your best source for all things related to vinyl.



Pioneer PL-100

keiko,

thanks for the recommendation, i bought this cartridge and am loving the sound and it is not broken in yet. do you know of any damping solution that can be affordable (feet)? also my dustcover is pretty beat so do you know of any generic or place where i could get it on the cheap? so far the cheapest component on my vinyl rig is my turntable:biggrin::biggrin:, it cost me 15 bucks and the cartrdge 55, i ordered a audioquest carbon fiber brush that is on the way and am planning on a spin clean record cleaner.

hopefully all factors helping get a better sound of the growing vinyl collection. will do some karmas sometime later since i purchased some records that i know i will not be listening to.

the only problem is that i live in the Dominican Republic and do not know the condition that they should arrive, but i will take it on my next trip and see how it works out.

DollarDave

Read up a bit over at Audiokarma and check into their suggestions for polishing the dust cover. Some suggest acrylic auto headlamp refurb/cleaning kits. Some have other suggestions. I am going to try the cheapest route first and then move up before I invest $100+ in a new cover for mine.

cristo

The turntable with the clean import King Crimson lp on it will sound better than the one with the scratched domestic copy of The Partridge Family's Greatest Hits.
I'm guessing the former is the Pioneer one.

EDUBAG

DaveMuell wrote: »

Read up a bit over at Audiokarma and check into their suggestions for polishing the dust cover. Some suggest acrylic auto headlamp refurb/cleaning kits. Some have other suggestions. I am going to try the cheapest route first and then move up before I invest $100+ in a new cover for mine.

dave,

maybe i misspoke the dust cover is not scratched over IT IS BEATEN TO DEATH!!! it is broken beyond repair only a replacement will work, hence the generic cheap option if there is one.

edubag