I posted this on the Facebook group but it didn't get much action so maybe a more long term format like this would be better.
I'm around the same age as most of you, which means I have been owning stereos for over 30 years. I'm not an audiophile and will never be one. But I have always had the expectation I should have at the least decent equipment. I would go through new pieces every 5-10 years whenever I thought I needed an upgrade and eventually I came to realize my setup totally sucked around 5 years ago and I wasn't getting nearly what I thought I should out of it. I went back to the drawing board and finally figured out what makes a difference and what doesn't.
I'm slow at work so am going to write an opus. Let's get a few disclaimers out of the way. No one wants to be a Guitar Shop Asshole. But we all spend hundreds of dollars per year on records, hundreds of dollars per year going to shows, and potentially thousands of dollars per year going to music festivals. Music matters to us so you should not have to apologize or think it is lame for wanting it to sound good. And, yes, most of the music we listen to sounds like shit, but there is a skill to sounding like shit. Most Oblivians' recordings are sonic marvels for how amazingly shitty they sound. You want to do it justice. You want to be as happy as possible listening to your records.
So here are all my lessons learned for everyone who is too afraid to ask.
TURNTABLES: I don't think this is a widely held opinion, but I kind of think the turntable itself doesn't really affect the sound. I own a couple turntables between solid and good and also own a cheap plastic USB turntable and if you put a good cartridge on the cheap one, it still sounds pretty good. To me, turntables are about vibes. You want something you can afford and something you enjoy handling. Playing records is a physical act, so you want a machine you enjoy operating. I had one turntable that did not vibe with me, and it just wasn't as fun to listen to records on.
The main thing with turntables is you just need to clear the bare minimum. You want one with an adjustable counterweight so you can calibrate for different cartridges. Ideally you would want a standard-mount head so you have the widest range of cartridges but there are some decent options with p-mount. You definitely don't want one of those all-in-one players.
CARTRIDGES: Cartridges do affect the sound but much like with turntables, your primary goal should just be avoiding the crap. Not only will a crap cartridge sound bad but a crap stylus can wear out and damage your records. The #1 offender is the little red one that comes with a lot of new starter turntables. Definitely avoid that. If you're buying a new cartridge, the bare minimum would be around $50. Lots of more than good enough cartridges are right at $100. All those cartridges for $50-100 will come with a needle but once that needle wears out or if you get a wandering eye, you can upgrade to different stylus types.
Among decent to good cartridges, they all have different sound profiles. Some are designed to be neutral and let the recording stand on its own while others can color the sound. DJ cartridges can have a bigger, thumpy sound while others can be more favorable for rock music with a more warm tone. IMO that is what we would want. For example Shure was a major manufacturer for a long time and most of their models came out in the 60s and 70s during the rock music era and were made for rock music. Cartridges are very sturdy so you can easily use vintage ones as long as you keep up with new stylus.
PRE-AMP: This is the part I understood the least and what I found makes the biggest difference. We all know we need a pre-amp in between our turntable and the rest of the system but for 25+ years I thought it was just a formality and one pre-amp was the same as another. Not even close. The pre-amp may be the most important link in the chain.
The #1 lesson is do not use the internal pre-amp on any receiver made after like 1985 and in most cases don't use the internal pre-amp in a turntable unless it is a really nice one. Think about it like this - a normal receiver purchased 40-50 years ago would have cost $300-500 and literally all it would do is play the radio or a turntable through 4 speakers while weighing 20-30 lbs. There are a lot of parts in there just dedicated to playing music. Now plenty of receivers still cost $300-500 and now they have 27 inputs, 12 sound settings, and you can connect upward of 15 speakers to them and they don't weigh half that. There have been a lot of advancements in manufacturing but you have assume you're not getting the same quality pre-amp at the same price point for that little bit of money. This finally hit me when I would play the same song on CD and LP and the LP clearly sounded worse.
The easiest solution is to get a functioning vintage receiver. This is not necessarily a budget solution these days because yuppies like vintage receivers now and the popular ones by Marantz, Pioneer, and Sansui can be really expensive. But there are other makes without as much status attached to them like Sony, Yamaha, Onkyo, Kenwood, Realistic, and others that most of the time aren't very expensive. IMO there is an inefficiency in the market right now with early 80s receivers. They don't look as cool as the 70s ones so no one cares about them but they still sound really good. My main receiver right now is an Onkyo made in 1982 and they are all over eBay for less than $100. Think about it, all this gear was made for listening to rock records. They usually have a warmer tone to suit analog recordings. Anything made after was made for listening to Dr. Dre and Nine Inch Nails CD's and sound more cold for digital.
Obviously a problem with 40-50 year old electronics is they can break and repair bills can be $300-400, but cars, air conditioners, furnaces, and guitars break, too, and we still fix them. The good thing about old school electronics is they are always fixable. They don't have chips where once that goes out, they're dead.
If for whatever reason you really need a stereo with audio visual capabilities and want a modern receiver for that, you're going to need an external pre-amp. I don't know much about them but the pretty good ones start at $150-200. If you have an external preamp and a modern receiver with a pre-amp, you do not plug it into the phono input; you need to use a different input or bad things will happen.
SPEAKERS: Speakers are pretty important. I'm nowhere near an expert but the main advice is just avoid the crap, and the crap is largely 90s and 2000s party thump speakers, computer speakers, or home theatre in a box speakers. For older speakers the rule of thumb is stick to the manufacturers who only make speakers (JBL, Polk Audio, Klipsch, Boston, etc.) and avoid the stereo component manufacturers (Pioneer, Technics, etc.). For new speakers, unlike other components, it seems like a lot of new ones are pretty good now to me.
At one time I tried to do a 5.1 system with a sub and I could just never make it sound good for music. I would definitely stick with classic 2-channel.
