Hi, All,
My 20 year old turntable is a Kenwood KD-50F. It was never used a lot and not at all for the last ten years. If I got a new cartridge and a pre-amp, would this be suitable for transferring my old vinyl collection to CD? Any suggestions on a not-too-expensive pre-amp and cartridge?
The AM/FM-tuner-stereo-amp which I used the turntable with appears to be dead. It’s a Kenwood KR-820. It might be cheaper to have this repaired than buy a pre-amp. Any ideas on that approach?
The first 4 links above are sources of replacement styluses and cartridges. You should just be able to replace the stylus within the existing cartridge, rather than the entire cartridge—unless you have lost the cartridge, broken something, or for some unlikely reason you can’t locate a replacement stylus.
The last link is to a Behringer USB sound card at Amazon–it’s 30 bucks and eliminates the need for a receiver or separate pre amp.
You plug the Behringer into a USB port on your PC and then plug your turntable into the Behringer. It includes a grounding terminal and built in pre amp.
If you need a new cartridge/stylus combination, I would get a Shure or Grado that tracks in the 1 to 1.5 gram range. Get a mid-level unit–no need to splurge. I haven’t checked cartridge prices in some time, but I would guess in the $50 area. Get a couple of levels down from the top of the line.
That’s what I’d do, but you can buy standalone pre-amps from places like Radio Shack I think.
I wouldn’t go to Radio Shack for a stylus if my life depended on it.
ART also make a similar device (I use an ART pre-amp witha a separate Edirol soundcard). The build quality on my ART is superb and it produces good results - I would expect the integrated device to work well too. See: http://www.artproaudio.com/products.asp?type=86&cat=9&id=128