Vinyl record sales have been steadily increasing in recent years, and in 2020, it hit $232 million, surpassing CD sales for the first time since the 1980s. Luckily, you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars on turntables to enjoy music from vinyl records.
The best turntable under $1,000 is the Audio-Technica AT-LP7. It plays 33 and 45 RPM and responds to speed changes immediately. The speed sensor ensures accurate platter rotation speed. It produces excellent quality music and comes at an affordable price.
The rest of the article will share with you the top turntables under $1,000, features of the best turntables, parts of a turntable, and how to get the best sound from your turntables. So, keep on reading!
Should You Choose a Cheaper Turntable?
Technically speaking, you could get turntables that cost about a hundred bucks. If you’re just getting onto vinyl records, you might be thinking going for a cheaper turntable might be the best way to go.
You’re not wrong for thinking that way because what if you don’t like vinyl after all and give it up after a few sessions. That’s a legitimate concern, and throwing thousands of dollars at something you’re not sure of could be wasteful.
However, you can’t say that you’ve genuinely given records a chance if you only use the cheapest turntables on the market which produce low-quality sound.
Best Overall: Audio-Technica AT-LP7 Turntable
This fully manual belt-drive turntable is a classic player that will give you excellent music quality under $1,000. It operates at 33-1/3 and 45 RPM. Its perfect VM520EB cartridge is how it’s capable of producing such fantastic music. The speed sensor on the motor helps with the maintenance of accurate platter rotation speed.
The MDF (medium-density fiberboard) used in its base construction is excellent for damping vibrations, so the sound comes out crisp and free from interference. The polyoxymethylene platter has anti-resonance features and is under the motor’s control. You also get a quality rubber mat with your purchase.
The gimbal suspension system and precision bearings provide excellent tracking for the J-shaped tracking arm.
The dust cover is separate from the turntable. It also doesn’t have a USB port, so you can’t make recordings of your music to play on the go. This slight con shouldn’t be a bother if you’re only using your turntables to listen to music because it delivers.
Best Quality Sound: U-Turn Audio Orbit Special Turntable
This turntable barely misses the $1,000 mark, but it’s a worthwhile investment. The first feature of this turntable is its beautiful exterior. The chassis comprises solid maple or walnut hardwood. The solid wooden base could also help with minimizing frequency interference.
It contains the Ortofon 2M Red cartridge that helps it produce clear music without interference. It has an elliptical stylus that helps it pick up information in your records better, and it has an acrylic platter with excellent, consistent speed to produce beautiful music.
The external belt drive consistently drives the platter at 33/45 RPM and produces less interfering motor noise due to its external placement. You can switch speeds in seconds because of the drive’s swift response. The precision gimbal tonearm has an anti-skate internally and counterweights for balance. It also has less distortion and has less tracking.
You might also appreciate the excellent customer support this company offers. They swiftly attend to a customer’s complaints and offer reliable solutions.
The only downside is that you might have to replace the belt. This problem doesn’t happen too often, but some previous customers remarked that the drive belt they received was a tad bit bigger. It’s a quick fix, and you should be back to enjoying excellent sound soon.
Most Budget-Friendly: Music Hall MMF-1.5 Turntable
This turntable is the budget option because it’s under $500. If your budget is restrictive, but you still want to enjoy the quality sound from vinyl records, this turntable is an excellent place to start. For the price, you’d be getting a pretty decent sound. It has an S-shaped arm that does an excellent job of picking up your record’s grooves.
Consider upgrading the conical stylus it comes with to an elliptical stylus if you want to get better sound. The belt drive is pretty silent so that you can hear your sound.
Your order comes with a platter mat that helps reduce vibration. It comes with a built-in phono preamplifier and preset, so it’s ready to use straight out of the box—it’s the beginner-friendly option.
It should come out playing 34.5 RPM, but you can use the speed adjustment setting at the back to get your desired setting. You might need a stroboscope mat or a smartphone app for accurate speed correction.
Finally, it looks good. The brown plinth gives it a classy finish.
Best for Professionals: Pioneer DJ Direct Drive DJ Turntable
Could you imagine getting a professional DJ turntable for less than $1,000?
Yes, you can. If you want to dabble into being a disc jockey, this turntable could be an excellent way to start. You only need to hook it up to a DJ mixer and get started. If you’re not interested in DJing, you could still enjoy this turntable’s professional features.
You can adjust the speed from 33⅓ to 45 RPM. You can reach high speeds of up to 33⅓ RPM in 0.3 seconds due to the drive’s increased torque. It has an incredibly silent direct drive that provides controlled stable rotation.
The heavy-mass plinth comprises die-cast zinc, so it’s helpful with vibrations and resonance reduction. There are rubber insulation materials on the tonearm. The base also has an insulator to tone down vibrations.
The springs and rubber on the turntable’s dampening part absorb external vibrations. All these insulating and dampening features ensure the clarity of the music you’ll get from this turntable.
Do you want a faster or slower tempo? You can simply increase or reduce it using the tempo adjustment knob. The reset button should get you back to baseline. It doesn’t come with an internal preamp, so the raw analog output is more authentic.
Best On-the-Go: Denon DP-450USB Semi-Automatic Analog Turntable
The beauty of a USB turntable is that you can turn your favorite records into digital files. You can listen to it anywhere anytime—turntables aren’t the most portable listening device. With the Denon DP-450USB, you can tape mp3 or WAV versions of your records.
This record costs just above $500 but under $1,000. It has outstanding sound quality for its price. It has a built-in preamp, but you can switch it off to use an integrated amp or receiver. If you’re just trying out vinyl records for the first time, you could start with this turntable. The setup process is straightforward, and it comes almost ready to use.
For less than $1,000, you can enjoy your 78 records. The speed selection system lets you toggle between the three available speeds 33⅓, 45, and 78 RPM.
The S-shaped tonearm has an optimized tracking angle. It lifts automatically once your record ends and stops playback. You might also appreciate its reduced harmonic distortion that helps protect your records from damage and creates clear sound.
Unfortunately, this turntable isn’t totally silent. You might hear the whirring sound of the motor within, especially if you’re standing close. If you move a few feet away, the music might mask this sound. If you’re particular about noise interference, the noise might be offensive to you. This turntable provides you with impressive qualities.
Best for Beginners: 1 By One Wireless Turntable
This turntable’s headlining feature is its dual connection modes, wired and wireless. The built-in preamps and phono line let you listen to your records over the included speakers or external speakers.
The 36-watt speakers that come with your purchase have an MDF exterior and an Alnico magnet. This magnet ensures the production of a stable magnetic field for long-term acoustic performance.
You could play music from digital sources such as tablets, android or apple smartphones, PCs, and USB-mp3 through the included speakers via wireless connections. You can also digitize your records using the USB port. You can now play these files through other devices such as your PC.
The music quality from this record player is far above the expectation for its price. Did we mention that this turntable costs far less than $1,000? So, it is excellent if you’re on a restrictive budget.
The adjustable counterweight gives you control over your turntable’s play. Furthermore, the anti-skating feature combined with the adjustable counterweight help protect your precious records from damage.
The platter comprises solid iron, which has a uniform mass providing stability and perfect rotation. This turntable is also aesthetically pleasing. The exterior has a rustic wood finish, and grains add to its appeal.
Factors To Consider When Buying a Turntable (Buyer’s Guide)
When picking out turntables, you might want to consider some factors. The best turntables for you should have the right features to produce excellent music while staying within your budget.
Budget
Your budget would typically influence the quality of turntables you can get. Usually, more expensive turntables sound better than cheaper alternatives because they feature sophisticated mechanisms and costly parts.
However, you can still enjoy great quality music from some turntables that cost less than $1,000 if you’re on a tight budget. You would need to identify specific qualities you need and look out for turntables within your budget that possess such qualities.
Essential Features
We’ve outlined some essential features to note when choosing your turntables.
Low Vibration Motor and Chassis
The cartridge is very sensitive to pick up the information stored in the tiny grooves on your records and transform them into music. Unfortunately, this sensitivity extends to vibrations, too. The cartridge can pick up on vibrations and convert them to unwanted sounds or musical distortions.
For your turntable, you’d probably be better off with one that doesn’t produce much vibration. The base should consist of materials with low vibration. The overall design, including the motors, should contribute little beats.
Stable Speed and Low Noise From Motor Drive
Fluctuating speed could translate to wobble, which can dampen your vinyl experience. The low and fast fluctuations, also known as wow and flutter, are typically seen in inferior quality turntables or older turntables from the 1960s and 70s.
Ideally, your turntable motors shouldn’t produce enough noise to interfere with the music. The design should be such that little vibrations can transmit to the tonearm.
Freely Moving Resonance Tonearm
The tonearm should move freely to guide the needle through your record. The best turntables feature excellent bearings, featuring low friction and tight tolerance to promote easy movement. A low resonance tonearm is crucial to stabilizing the cartridge and letting it work efficiently. You might want to look into this feature when choosing.
Turntable Knowledge
You might have a hard time choosing a suitable turntable if you know next to nothing about it. The specification outlined can sound like jargon if you don’t understand the function of each part.
Turntables comprise several parts, each contributing to the production of fantastic music. There might be slight variations in these parts in different turntable brands. However, not all would affect your listening experience significantly.
Fortunately, the next section highlights your turntable’s essential parts to help you better understand how it works.
Parts of a Turntable
Many music lovers are switching to records for the unique sound it creates. It’s not only the sound that attracts users to records but the feel, too. You get to set up each record manually.
Your turntables comprise several crucial parts that each contribute to producing such fantastic sound. Here are the vital turntable parts:
Base
The record base is also known as the plinth. What does the base of your record do?
If you said it’s a foundation for your turntable, you’re right. The plinth supports all the other moving parts of your turntable. Your plinth could be wooden, metallic, or plastic. Your choice of these materials depends totally on your preference.
The plinth also serves for cosmetic or aesthetic purposes. For instance, if you have a hardwood theme in your home, you might feel a turntable with a wooden base would fit in better with your decor.
Platter
The flat disc-like surface on which your record sits while playing is the platter. Your platter might play 33.3 RPM, 45 RPM, or 78 RPM records depending on your vinyl.
You might want to place a platter mat between your platter and your record. Platter mats are thin disc-shaped sheets that help reduce resonance and vibrations between your turntables parts. It consists of a metal rod and plate.
Metal Rod
The metal rod is the short metal rod projecting at the center of your turntable’s platter. This rod is there to keep your record secured and in place. The metal rod is very important because, without the metal rod, your records might slip off your turntables when it spins.
Plate
The turntable plate spins due to the drive system and causes your records to turn, too. Cheaper turntable plates are usually composed of steel, which is a lightweight material. Steel is light with low inertia; thus, steel plates are more likely to have motor speed instability.
Turntable plates might also consist of other metals covered in rubber or plastic. The rubber and plastic covers help protect the plates from scratching. Aluminum is the more expensive metal for turntable plates, but it’s also the preferred. Aluminum promotes speed stability by reducing vibration and keeping your record balanced.
Drive System
Turntables tend to have either of the two drive systems. The drive system is responsible for turning the turntable platter, which, in turn, causes your records to spin. Without the drive system, the records cannot play your records. The two types of turntable drive systems are:
Belt Drive System
The belt drive system usually features a rubber belt that wraps around the spindle, and the motor stays offset. It hugs and rotates the platter like a pulley. The belt drive dampens vibrations and low-frequency sound; thus, it features less distortion than the alternative.
On the flip side, the belt drive might take longer to reach maximum speed. Due to stretch and potential slippage of the taut belt, the rotation speed might not be accurate. High-grade turntables might feature multiple motors that balance the platter pull for an improved drive.
You might also need to replace the rubber belt in your turntable’s belt drive system when it becomes stretched, loosed, uneven, or cracked.
Direct Drive System
The direct drive system rotates your turntable’s platter directly by a motor located underneath. There are no belts. However, this close relationship with the motors leaves room for a higher degree of vibrational interference. This interference might translate to more flawed quality sound production.
The direct drive system isn’t all negatives. It features a higher torque than the alternative, so it should hit the right speed faster. It’s also less vulnerable to outside forces like the stylus weight.
Stylus
The stylus is the critical turntable part that reads the impressions on your records. It features a diamond or sapphire at the tip of a short metal rod. The stylus connects to the cartridge. The stylus crystal passes through the record’s grooves to translate the information to music.
Your turntable’s stylus might be spherical or elliptical. Spherical styli are much cheaper but less precise at reading the grooves because of their high location on the tracks. It also has the added advantage of lasting longer. Elliptical styli stay closer to the grooves to extract more accurate sounds.
Tonearm
The tonearm holds the stylus in place while steadying the cartridge. The tonearm should remain flexible to move towards the center of the records. The tonearm comprises a counterweight at the backend and a headshell at the frontend while resting on a pivoting fulcrum.
Your turntable’s tonearm’s flexibility could depend on the shape. The common tonearm shapes are:
Straight Tonearms
Straight tonearms are, well, straightforward, but they can vary in height—you could get long or short tonearms. Short tone arms weigh less and respond lightly to the grooves on the records. They don’t require anti-skate mechanisms to resist forces. In theory, they produce better music free from vibrational interference.
Long tonearms are susceptible to interference from inward forces and thus rely on anti-skate mechanisms. They are also heavier due to these complex systems.
S-Shaped Tonearms
S-shaped tonearms are better suited to handle a vibrating chassis, a wobbly disk, and tracking errors. The design makes it better balanced horizontally. The design features a center placed fulcrum that lets the needle be fixed to the grooves’ center to capture the best quality music possible.
J-Shaped Tonearms
J-shaped tonearms closely resemble the straight tonearms, but the headshell is slightly bent, giving it the J shape. The bent headshell fits a long arm into a small space, reducing tracking errors as you play your record. The extra weight this design offers reduces vertical momentum, so the needle doesn’t bounce out of the groove.
Cartridge
Turntable cartridges or phono cartridges are one of the most crucial turntable parts. The cartridges read the information in your record’s grooves and transform them into an electrical current, which your setup amplifies as music for your entertainment.
The parts of the cartridge are:
Cartridge Body
The cartridge body contains all other parts of the cartridge. It is usually plastic and has a headshell mount that connects it to the headshell. Some turntables let you take off the headshell, so you affix the cartridge easily.
Headshell mounts of different cartridges are:
- Standard/half-inch mount: This mount type is the most popular and uses two screws to attach the cartridge to the tonearm’s headshell.
- P-mount: The cartridge is attached to the tonearm directly by a single screw.
- Universal: The universal mount attaches to the standard and P-mount tonearms via an adapter.
Cantilever and Suspension
The styli attach to the cantilever, which is a thin rod. This vital turntable part holds the stud as it reads the record’s grooves and transfers this information to the magnet and coils. The suspension system internally controls the cantilever.
Amplifier and Preamplifier
These two components are vital to sending information from the cartridge to the speaker. Sometimes, the preamplifier would boost the weak electrical signals to produce loud sounds.
Some turntables contain a built-in preamplifier, while others don’t. Audiophiles usually prefer turntables without preamps so they can enjoy full-range audio quality.
The amplifier is responsible for increasing the line level to raise the volume of sound produced.
Best Ways To Improve Your Turntable’s Sound Quality
After buying your turntables for under $1,000, you might be worried about the music quality. While more expensive turntables tend to produce better quality music, you could still enjoy the excellent quality sound with some tweaks.
Separate Your Turntable From Speakers
Start by separating your speakers from your turntables. If your speakers share the same surface with your turntable, the vibrations it produces could interfere with the stylus movement. Placing your speakers on a separate surface could be the first step to preventing vibrational disturbance.
Other sounds like pounding sounds from your neighbors could also cause noisy interference. Consider investing in a separate shelf for your turntables that can help shield them from such disturbances. You should ensure that it sits on a perfectly level surface. You could use a smartphone app to check that the shelf is level.
Take Off the Dust Cover
Your turntable’s dust cover protects your records from dust, kids, or pets. If your turntable is in a secure location devoid of threats, you can do away with the dust cover. The dust cover creates unnecessary vibrations that could interfere with the music quality.
Clean Your Records
Dirt is your record’s worst enemy. It could cause your record to skip and might eventually cause damage. The dirt could also accumulate on the stylus and could affect its functioning.
The bottom line is that dirt could reduce your music quality. You might want to use an anti-static brush to clean your records routinely. You could also wash your records to remove dirt.
Balance the Tonearm and Cartridge
An unbalanced tonearm could mess with your sound and possibly damage your records. If your tonearm is out of balance, you could try doing it yourself. The tonearm should be close enough to pick up all the vital information in the grooves but not such that it carves and damages your record.
Conclusion
You might have to consider your budget, turntable knowledge, and bonus features in choosing the best turntables under $1,000.
The list topper is the Audio-Technica AT-LP. It is fully manual, so you would need to know your way around a turntable. A good option for novice record lovers on a budget is Music Hall – MMF-1.5 Turntable. The 1byone Wireless Turntable is also a budget option that offers additional features like USB and wireless connection.
Recommended Reading