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Advice on Semi or Fully Automatic Turntables

SimpleTheater

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I have a decent vinyl collection and with age (e.g. laziness) I want a little more convenience out of my turntable - at the least send the tone arm back when the record ends. I don’t want a simple manual lift, I want the tone arm back and preferably the unit to shut off.

I do not need the unit to have a built in phono preamp, as I have a MM/MC preamp on my integrated amp.

So I’m looking for suggestions under $1,000. Thanks.
 

anmpr1

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Thorens makes a couple of fully automatic record players coming in around a thousand dollars.

Dual makes an automatic for eight hundred dollars. I was surprised to find out they are still in business.

Project has an automatic for about five hundred dollars.

There could be some others, but those are three brands I've read about recently.
 
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SimpleTheater

SimpleTheater

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Dual makes an automatic for eight hundred dollars. I was surprised to find out they are still in business.
I'll have to check out all of them, but especially the Dual. I owned one as a kid and I remember it said "Made in West Germany", prior to the reunification.
 

anmpr1

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I'll have to check out all of them, but especially the Dual. I owned one as a kid and I remember it said "Made in West Germany", prior to the reunification.
I briefly owned a 1229 that, back then, was considered one of the top changers. The base was kind of nifty because it featured a hinged drop down door on the front, where you kept spindles and a 45 rpm adapter.

Later I had a 704, which was the beginning of the end for Dual. Their first DD, the 701, had very nice cosmetics. It looked upscale. The semi-auto 704 (and fully auto 721) showed signs of cheapening in the cosmetic department. You could tell the cost cutting. In fact, I owned it until last year, when the elctronics gave out. By then it was time to recycle it to the local land-fill.

Dual then got in bed with Ortofon, producing their ULM 'tables, featuring a lot of electronic circuitry of questionable reliability.

In Germany they currently sell a higher end record player called the Primus Maximus. The name sounds like something from a rude Monty Python movie, but the deck itself looks nice. Low torque DD, but doesn't appear to be automatic. Like the old ULM era, Dual is still in bed with Ortofon, but at a higher level, I guess.


dual_primus_maximus_1920x1280.jpg
 

JSmith

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killdozzer

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I have a decent vinyl collection and with age (e.g. laziness) I want a little more convenience out of my turntable - at the least send the tone arm back when the record ends. I don’t want a simple manual lift, I want the tone arm back and preferably the unit to shut off.

I do not need the unit to have a built in phono preamp, as I have a MM/MC preamp on my integrated amp.

So I’m looking for suggestions under $1,000. Thanks.
You're looking for new? Where do you live?

Be careful about Dual! As nomen is trully omen, it split in two and you have some decent stuff that carries the fame of German Dual and some sheer poo that you probably shouldn't consider. I read an article about it, but it's even mentioned in wiki entry:
 

Loathecliff

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The supreme and long lasting Lencos 75 & 78 have a switchable end of side lift and TT stop.
Granted the standard arm needs tweaking, but the rest is an engineering joy.
 

drewdawg999

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Fluance RT85N. There's a switch on the back for auto-lift. Also I choose the one with the Nagaoka MP-110 cart, over the Ortofon 2m Blue.
 
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