Teac TN-300 turntable - any opinions?

I reecommended an Orbit Plus with the optional built in Pluto and Ortofon cartridge for my mother in law. It's impressive. The Orbit Plus is my recommendation in that price range.

 

I have not set up any picture posting accounts.

 

It really seems like the extra $50 for the Fluance RT81 (over the 80) is well worth it. Check out the most recent Amazon review, which compares it to the Teac and Debut Carbon.

 

I have two reasons to prefer the RT80 over the 81. (1) The walnut wood veneer of the RT81, while beautiful, will clash with the cherry furniture that I have in the room. I like having matching furniture / wood grains, though it's really just me - my wife is happy to have non-matching stuff as long as she likes it. (2) I have been meaning to get a decent cart with a conical stylus for playing 45s in my main listening room (office) for quite a while, and the RT80 comes with one. Alternately, LPGear has a compelling eliptical replacement stylus which would give me nice eliptical for LPs and conical for 45s in the living room. Lots of options. I could put the 311EP that I use in my office as a backup on a headshell and run that as well; the 311EP is no slouch (probably comparable to the AT95) and it is simply being used as a backup right now.

The 81 would be more "plug-and-play" than the 80 with the well regarded AT95 cart, but I'd have a lot more tweaking with the 80, plus the piano black is going to be much better in the room than the walnut would.

BTW all this also favors the bottom of the line cheapest U-Turn in either black or red.

 

Ah, all good reasons. Sounds like the hollows plinth body is the only "challenge", which you can no doubt find a way to overcome.

 

I think U-Turn might have the nicest looking red. The Music Hall Ferrari Red is very cool, but the modest matte finish of UT avoids the potential gaudiness of the high gloss reds. I thought that the black I saw at B&N was just a bit too Soviet basic, though.

Otherwise...
Arm- seems to favor Fluance.
Platter- Don't know. The steel of the Fluance is surely feather weighted, but the MDF ain't real sexy.
Auto stop- Big edge for Fluance, at least from the perspective of one who used to play the game of "Can I stay for all of side one of the Moody Blues' A Question of Balance". (Lost about 95% of the time. )
Cue- Fluance with the default win.
Cartridge- Obvious draw is obvious.
Plinth- Uturn's would seem to be deader.
Headshell- Detachabikty offers some nice future ease and flexibility. (No offering of separate head shells by Fluance yet seems like an oversight.)

 

After about 5 days on the job the TN300 started acting up. The motor is not maintaining a stable speed. After checking belt, cartridge, connections and turning switches off and on and between speeds, etc. I called seller for a return and replacement. I hope the next one works properly. It is a lovely looking table with very good sound when it is working! Today it gets re-boxed and shipped back.

 

What is the "Hanpin school?"

 

Hanpin is the Chinese manufacturer that makes all these cheap and some not so cheap rebadged turntables. The new Technics is the exception but is in another price league.

 

Replacement TN 300 arrives today.

 

The replacement was set up yesterday at my office and was operated for about 3 hours. So far so good. As previously stated the player does a very good job with the supplied cartridge. I am pleased with the vast improvement over the sound coming from LP over this system instead of the CD sound. To my ears there is a presence and warmth that the system lacks with CD. CD sound tends to be somewhat sterile and dry.

 

That new Dual looks a lot like the TEAC.
It appears that Dual is no longer Dual.

 

Excellent! Happy ending. I need to put that Teac in my list of possible models to consider......

 

I put together my Chrismas list and put the U-Turn basic in red. The hifi aesthetic and the fact that it's made in USA ended up being important enough for me to favor U-Turn.

 

Just picked up the U-Turn Orbit Plus (in white), last week. I have to say that it was money well spent. I really like the acrylic platter, and the dynamic range it provides (at least compared to my Denon DP300-F). I think you'll enjoy it.

 

You've been able to get the Music Hall MMF 2.2 for $300 for awhile now on MusicDirect.com, and now the Rega RP1 is the same price there. I would choose those over most of the alternatives above except the top end U-Turn, which I suspect is similar to the above two. All come with good cartridges from solid companies and none are built by the bogey-man that people always mention, Hanpin.