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ATH AT-LP60 vs Sears Professional Series 28668

ATH AT-LP60 vs Sears Professional Series 28668

  • ATH AT-LP60

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Sears Professional Series 28668

    Votes: 6 100.0%
  • Total voters
    6
Wintering

Wintering

New Member
Hi all,

Longtime reader, first-time poster.

I'm trying to replace a turntable on a budget. I'm strictly looking second-hand.

I found an ATH AT-LP60 and Sears Professional Series 28668 for the same price.

The Sears is a pretty cool record player. It's a CEC from the 70s from what I understand and very similar to the Marantz 6100. The ATH AT-LP60 is obviously much, much more modern.

They're the exact same price and in equally good condition. Anyone want to 'stan' for one or the other?
 
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The AT-LP60 is a plastic piece of junk with no antiskate adjustment and no adjustment for cartridge geometry. I am not even sure that the counterweight is adjustable. The CEC turntables are wonderful. Grab it!
 
dr*audio said:
The AT-LP60 is a plastic piece of junk with no antiskate adjustment and no adjustment for cartridge geometry. I am not even sure that the counterweight is adjustable. The CEC turntables are wonderful. Grab it!
Click to expand...
Thanks for the concise answer! This is what I suspected, plus all of my equipment is vintage so it would be awkward to have such a big hunk of plastic.
 
The AT-LP60 is a beginner turntable which has the counterbalance, anti-skating, and cartridge alignment all pre-adjusted at the factory, so the first-time user doesn't need to worry about it. It's not a bad turntable -- it was just designed for people who have never owned a turntable before, not for the experienced vinyl enthusiasts who hang out here.

Sears mostly put their name on low-end BSR record players with ceramic cartridges, which would be far below the AT-LP60 in sound quality, but the "Professional Series" model mentioned here is a surprising exception to that norm. CEC also manufactured the higher-end Realistic turntables for Radio Shack and they are generally very well regarded.
 
I picked up the Sears Pro Series, it's a beautiful machine; however, I grabbed a nice new stylus from my neighborhood audio shop (it didn't come with a stylus) and was very disappointed that my first play sounded terribly distorted. Upon further inspection, it looks like the Shure M91 ED cartridge is pretty degraded.

There's exposed silver metal where paint has worn off. I tested my speakers / wiring / amp to make sure all those signals were clean. Only thing that creates crackling and noise is when the headshell and cartridge are plugged in.

Have never replaced a cartridge, not really sure how to choose... It would be ideal to pick something that fits the stylus I bought specifically for the Shure M91 ED! Any advice would be appreciated.
 
Hmm, the M91 should sound pretty good. Post a picture of it with the new stylus on it. I gave a Realistic branded CEC built direct drive table to my son with a Realistic branded M91ED and it sounds very good.
 
Physical appearance of the cartridge is unlikely a source of the problem. What's the state of the record first?

Check all contact surfaces next. The RCA cables, the pins on the end of the cartridge, the pins at the end of headshell and the corresponding contacts in the end of the tonearm. All of these spots can be cleaned with contact cleaner or Magic Eraser.
 
vwestlife said:
The AT-LP60 is a beginner turntable which has the counterbalance, anti-skating, and cartridge alignment all pre-adjusted at the factory, so the first-time user doesn't need to worry about it. It's not a bad turntable -- it was just designed for people who have never owned a turntable before, not for the experienced vinyl enthusiasts who hang out here.
Click to expand...

I bought one for a minimal system when I worked in another city, and I was very happy with it. It gets the job of playing records done very well for a reasonable price. It only started to sound bad when I connected it to expensive equipment, but then, what do you really expect?
 
Montycat said:
Physical appearance of the cartridge is unlikely a source of the problem. What's the state of the record first?

Check all contact surfaces next. The RCA cables, the pins on the end of the cartridge, the pins at the end of headshell and the corresponding contacts in the end of the tonearm. All of these spots can be cleaned with contact cleaner or Magic Eraser.
Click to expand...

Thanks for this. I took some contact cleaner to all of these surfaces and it definitely seemed to help a lot after testing a few records.

Is there a good thread on regular record + turntable maintenance & cleaning? I want to make sure I keep my stuff in better shape. I think many of my records suffered from years of my ignorance...
 
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