Teac TN-550

fredjones

Active Member
I recently bought a Teac TN-550 and would like to share my assessment.
I’ll keep it to the point:


PROS:

1. Sound I found to be very good, detailed, full, clear, what I expected and and little more from a turntable at this price.
2. Marble plinth – beautiful.
3. Feet seemed stout and able to absorb any vibration.
4. Aluminum tonearm and headshell, headshell attached firmly and easily.
5. Dust cover was the real deal, solid, good hinges that opened at set angle and stayed there.
6. Belt drive was rock stable speed, I played some speed sensitive LPs and they sounded fine.
7. Acrylic platter was perfectly machined and polished.

CONS:

1. Damper dropped the needle like a rock.
2. The instructions said to level the tonearm, but even though it is height adjustable, at its lowest the tonearm still was angled downward slightly. This could only be fixed by me adding a mat that was around 5mm thick.
3. The counter weight was not able to maintain a fixed position. It rotated appropriately, but could be shifted slightly forward or backward by just pushing slightly on it. This affected the tracking force by about a tenth of a gram just by doing this.
4. When I used it with my tube phono pre, it had a hum. None of my other tables do this, even the cheapest. It did fine with other preamps though.

The bad outweighed the good and it has since been sent back. My feeling is that Teac is not quite ready for prime time with these models yet. This may be a quality control issue and/or I just got a defective unit. Either way it might be best to avoid these for now.
 
Would be nice to know what the wow and flutter really measured. I see it's spec is 1%. Looks like a nice table though.
 
This Teak isn't cheap, around $700-$800, everybody says it looks nice but most of us want more than a pretty turntable to look at. As with similar models from the suspected mfg (Hanpin) there doesn't seem to be any commitment to quality control no matter what name is plastered on the table, Teak/Pioneer/Audio Technica etc etc. The same money would buy a very nice sounding performing vintage table that would run circles around this pretty imposter.
 
I had such high hopes when I bought the table. I already have a Pioneer PL 550. So why not get another 550 (HA).
Unfortunately Majick47 is right. When compared to my Pioneer the quality just was not there. Funny thing is I really
enjoyed the sound and I tried to justify keeping the table, but ultimately had to return it.
 
I'm replying because I've been very interested in the TN-550, but there's just so little actual information on it. Thanks for your feedback @fredjones !

At that price point, ~$900 -- I see main competitors, the Music Hall MMF 5.3, and the Rega Planar 3. Would anyone strongly recommend one of those two over the TN-500? Neither seems to have anywhere close to the feature set of the TN-550.

Also, I keep seeing people mention how the the money would be better spent on a vintage table. Where should I start on choosing the right vintage table? It's a bit overwhelming to consider the decades of manufacturing that is called vintage, and then take the risk of buying one that might have problems and is un-returnable.

Thanks for any help.
 
noman at least the Music Hall and Rega have some type of established track record compared to little or next to nothing for the Teac. As far as features go many times it's a case of the fewer features the better with manual tables being much more reliable and better performing. As for preowned or vintage tables I agree their are thousands of makes/models, picking a table either vintage or new is no guarantee it will be a good performing quality built table. If you know little about tables present or past and with a budget of $800-$900 you should have no trouble picking up a mint Technics SL-1200Mk2 with box/packing materials and all the original accessories that was mfg in the last 10 years and good chance a very decent cartridge installed. The 1200 has a 35+ year history of high reliability and they rarely fail even when abused. Just to get an idea of the different tables available in the market place check Audiogon, also do extensive reading on AK before you leap into a table you might later regret buying.
 
Thanks. I hear what you're saying about fewer features often being better. In the case of the TN-550, I meant that less about usual suspects like a built in preamp and full-auto operation, and more about features like VTA, an anti-skate dial instead of fishing wire, quality tonearm wiring, and a full-platter belt. Those all seem like real benefits. As the regretful owner of a Pro-Ject Debut Carbon Esprit SB, I can tell everyone a thing or two about a $600-but-nearly-bare-bones turntable build being just plain cheap and disappointing. Trying to find the sweet spot of performance and livability around this price range.
 
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