Someone in a nearby town has a Pioneer PL-510A turntable for $85, and a Thorens TD 150 MKII AB w/Graco cartridge for $185. Don't know much about either. Do I need a good turntable?

I'm not really familiar with either model, but that Pioneer looks sharp.

Always nice to have a quality TT around the house, Larry.

http://www.theanalogdept.com/td150_dept.htm

Larry, I am more partial to the Thorens for reliability and for locating parts. The Thorens being more mechanical than electronic are much easier to keep functioning.

I have a PL-550 that is driving me crazy trying to get the speed correct.

To me that is a bit high for a 150, I would watch more for a 160, parts avalibility is much better on the 160. Watching many of the 160's might have an SME arm.

http://www.theanalogdept.com/

http://www.theanalogdept.com/thorens_dept_.htm

A good turntable can mean the difference between enjoying your vinyl and being frustrated with vinyl. That doesn't mean you need to spend a lot of money though.

Jim

My son in law purchased a TD-150 on ebay, but one of the transit screws had "frozen" in place, and the suspension didn't work properly as a result. The tonearm bounced all over the place with the sligh-*test*-('") vibration.

Certainly, not all used TD-150's are like this, but I must state that I have been nothing less than delighted with the performance of the Dual CS-5000 I "won" on ebay almost a year ago. It's a superbly engineered belt-driven unit with a very fine tonearm well suited to a high compliance cartridge. It even came with a TOTL Shure cartridge, and cost me only $299.95.

CS-5000's crop up all the time on ebay (there's one listed now, but with a relatively cheap, bottom of the line, Stanton 500 cartridge - a lousy choice for this turntable) with a current bid of only $57. If you can snap that one up, and buy a new cartridge from The Needle Doctor for around $100 or so, I think you'll be very satisfied with the results. Better still, wait a while until another CS-5000 becomes available with the very fine Ortofon cartridge many came supplied with originally.

It depends...Do you have any vinyl records?
If so, o good TT is a must. My choice goes to Thorens.

Thorens - a no-brainer.