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New to vinyl, worth upgrading sl-j2 to sl-7?

C

CouponKing

New Member
New here and new to vinyl. Have a Technics SL-J2 as my first turntable and love it. I have health issues and wanted something with as little fuss as possible, and that thing is pretty close to plug and play which is great. Wondering if the SL-7 would be a big enough upgrade in sound quality to justify it. Thanks!
 
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There was, and is, a lot of debate about how much better (or not) a linear tracker sounds than a swing-arm turntable, but I like them. Have several, but not the SL-7. They do indeed have less inner groove distortion if you can hear that -- my ears aren't good enough to notice much any more.

One thing strongly in your favor there though is that they are fully automatic and will save you from damaging a stylus, etc. It will require a P-mount cartridge, but very good ones are available -- I'm fond of Stantons, but there are plenty of other choices as well.

I'd expect an SL-7 would need an overhaul by now, something to consider. I'd not get one "in the wild" for that reason, one purchased from someone able to get it back into new condition would be advisable.
 
CouponKing said:
New here and new to vinyl. Have a Technics SL-J2 as my first turntable and love it. I have health issues and wanted something with as little fuss as possible, and that thing is pretty close to plug and play which is great. Wondering if the SL-7 would be a big enough upgrade in sound quality to justify it. Thanks!
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Why not just buy a SL-1300 or SL-1600? And use older Ortofon Concorde or Reloop Concorde with it, with a Stylus 10 or 20. The best no fuss automatic you can buy. You can also buy premounted cartridges in headshells which usually are already aligned to that geometry from other brands like Audio-Technica, Nagaoka, and the Ortofon 2M. Basically mount, balance, set tracking force, and antiskating. In T4p mount, you have basically Audio-Technica (1 model), and you have Grado for brand new, currently available options, and the Ortofon OM-P series, have stylus support available from Ortofon. (Stylus 10-40)
 
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