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Ever buy a turntable just for the cartridge?

Tonyqt

Tonyqt

Active Member
Has anyone ever bought a turntable that they could care less about just to get the cartridge that was on it? I've seen a few turntables listed on a few different sights with no mention of which cartridge was on it. Sometimes if the pictures are good enough you can make out what cart is on it. I haven't pulled the trigger yet but it seems that some are worth more then the turntable. Has anyone got anything "good" this way. Good stylus?
I'd love to hear your stories. It might make me just grab one at some point.
 
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Well not strictly because of the cartridge. But the cartridge was probably worth more than the table.

I'm talking a clean Denon DP-35f that I got at a thrift store. $9.99 Honestly I would have bought it anyway, but the Grace F-9 hanging off the end made the deal much much sweeter.

Still using it...check my signature...
 
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A big part of the reason I bought a $125 AR XA was for the Shure V-15 Type III that was mounted.
 
I tried to one time. It was a local craig's list ad for a technics semi-auto TT that had a Dynavector 17D2 on it. I couldn't drive fast enough before it was gone.
 
picked up a non-working £10 Hitachi HT- 350 a while back for parts. It came with a Shure m75 and the standard headshell with the hitachi logo , a good lid and most importantly all four feet on the baseboard , (one was missing from the working model I had). So , its well worth bagging a cartridge at this price ,and , a few other good bits that others might need can always be put up for sale.
 
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yep. Bought a BIC something-or-other for $14 at a thrift store because it had a Realistic R25ED on it. Busted stylus of course, but I was in need of a cart at the time. Promptly binned the rest of the table, it'd apparently been stored somewhere hot and the platter was warped. There was literally nothing worth saving on it save for the dust cover, and I just didn't care enough to try to find a home for it.

I did set it on top of the trash can and someone picked it before the trash man came by... more power to 'em I guess.
 
I picked up a beat up Fisher branded BSR with plastic platter for $6 at GW and a PE 2035? for $5 at the flea market for the Pickering V15 cartridges they had. The rest went in the trash.
 
Yes, I did. It was an older Dunlop Systemdek Transcription 'jelly fish' turntable which I bought for the Supex Black SD Super on the Grace G727 Gyro Master arm. I've still got the Supex as well as the Grace arm. The turntable didn't sound half bad but it was as ugly as sin with some sticky ass brown paint on it so I parked it for about 10 years.

When I had some free time, I spent a week almost fulltime to scrape off the dreadful paint and airbrushed it burgundy metallic satin. The platter had a rotted rubber ring on its perimeter and I found a perfect replacement for it at an o-ring distributor. The deck also came with two armboards - one for the Grace and another for an SME arm.

I happened to have a nos SME Series 111 arm and fitted that inplace of the Grace and finally sold it.

All in all, it was a very, very good deal financially for me.

I'll post a pic of this scroe job.

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Great stories everyone. This picture has me thinking I should pick up this table. I've heard this is a pretty good cartridge. No mention of it. Only that the table works and sounds good. Should I go for it? (The table is cheap)
image.jpeg
 
Yep, I bought Panasonic unit with CD4 (four channel) that had a strain gauge cart. I had asked a fellow AKer about it and he was interested so I shipped it to him for cost + shipping. I also purchased a Technics SL1300 with an AT15SA cart that was probably worth as much as the turntable. Stylus was decent but I eventually replaced it with NOS SAS.

Roger
 
Several years back, I attended a big sale at a local electronics store. They had a 'surplus section' set up with a bunch of stuff from their warehouse. In and amongst the Laserdisc players (one of which I bought) and VCRs were some Gemini XL-100 cheapie DJ turntables. One of them was equipped with a Shure M97xE cartridge. The price tag on the turntables? $24.99. Essentially, I was buying the cartridge for half-price, and getting the turntable for free. :biggrin:
-Adam
 
yes a Sony psx5 as I already had one but it had a Stanton 681EEE,s on it.. TT was mint too.. didn't need a second but wanted the Stanton. I still have both !
 
I bought a Sony PS-X600 for a project and found it came with a B&O MMC20CL in perfect condition. What I paid was less than the going rate for the cart, never mind the TT alone was mint.

Still have the cartridge.....gifted the TT to a friend.
 
No, but i did purchase a TT for the TA. Flipped the Oracle Delphi II after a few months and kept the Alphason.
 
I got a PS-X600 off craigslist for $170, it was in great shape, but then I found a Shure V15IV on the end and the deal got even sweeter :).
 
Not strictly for the cartridge - I needed a TT, but the Marantz TT-15/Clearaudio Virtuoso combination swayed me.
 
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