Turntables

I've been wanting to buy a turntable as most drum and bass tracks are only available in vinyl. At last, I did a bit of research by Googling a lot this morning. After two hours of research, I found it costs no less than nearly 300 quid for my purpose.

There are basically two types of turntables out there: home-use and DJ-use. Main differences between these two are (1) belt drive or direct drive; (2) with or without built-in phono-preamplifier; (3) without or with pitch control.

The first difference is about whether or not you are unable to scratch records. For my purpose, I don't necessarily need to scratch, but if possible, I want to practice scratching just for fun. So the DJ turntable wins here.

The second difference is about whether or not you want to connect your turntable to the Hi-Fi system without a phono input. If you just plug a turntable into your stereo, the sound level will be very low. You need to amplify the vinyl sound. But my stereo does not have a phono-preamplifier. Connecting a DJ turntable to line-in inputs won't work. The home-use turntable wins here.

The final difference is about whether or not you are happy with the speed of music just as fast as recorded. I want to listen to drum and bass with vinyl. But DJs always play records a bit quicker than the recorded speed. I'm used to that speed by going clubbing or listening to the radio. So I want to control the pitch of music. The winner in the final round is the DJ turntable.

So I need a turntable with built-in phono-amplifier AND pitch control. The only option for this type of turntable seems to be Vestax BDT-2500, which costs nearly 300 quid. This one is a belt-drive type. So I can't scratch. There seems to be no direct-drive turntable with an amplifier built-in.

Or I can buy Numark TT200 for less than 200 quid (reputable DJ turntables like those made by Technics and Vestax cost more than 300 quid) and some phono-amplifier like TerraTec Phono PreAmp Studio USB for 100 quid.

But I don't have 300 quid. My budget is 200 quid...