record players?

cooljammer00

So, I'm seriously considering getting the new Radiohead discbox for In Rainbows. It comes with the album pressed to vinyl, and I've always wanted to get into listening to records or whatever they're called. But I dont actually own a record player. How do I start with all this? And by all this, I mean record players, LPs, vinyl, all of it.

like, what record player brands are good and reliable? and where could i get some records/record players?

Pheezer

You don't need a bent arm and you don't need direct drive. Direct drive is nice, but not particularly useful if you're not a DJ. So a straight arm belt driven turntable, the cheapest kind of all, is all you really need.

The brand matters very little. What REALLY matters are your cartridge (the thing that reads plugs into the arm and "reads" the record), your pre-amp, and your amp. All of these things range in price from cheap to new car, and you see varying quality across the price spectrum.

I would suggest budgeting up to $100 for a cartridge. Start with something nice but not ridiculous. I don't own a record player at the moment so I don't have any personal suggestions but a buddy of mine is in love with his Grado cartridge.

With regards to the pre-amp, you might find that some of the entry level turntables have a built-in pre-amp. They're usually good enough to get the sound to your amp and if that's all you want, that's cool. Or you may find that your home theatre receiver has a Phono input built-in. This usually implies that it's got a phono pre-amp built-in as well and will accept the bare signal from the turntable.
You will likely often find however that obtaining a phono pre-amp and using that prior to your home theatre amplifier and running the signal in through a line level input will result in better sound. Unless you have a better than average receiver.

And finally the amplifier. You're probably just going to run this into a home theatre receiver and that's fine. They're usually good enough at boosting the level on a stereo signal to be used for this purpose. Hell, it sounds good with your TV, right? So you probably won't find that you want or need to invest in a separate, higher quality amplifier for the sake of your record player.
I know a guy who did and it sounds amazing, but spending a few hundred dollars on something that pretty much just accepts a line level stereo input and outputs in stereo only isn't within the budgets or mindsets of a lot of people. And there's nothing wrong with that.

So what I'm really saying here is, get something cheap and without a pre-amp built in. You probably won't be listening to vinyl every night for the next decade so if it breaks in two years, who cares, it was only $50. Spend the rest of your money on a decent cartridge and a decent pre-amp. Both of these will remain valuable long after your first record player is dead and gone.

If you were certain you wanted a record player that would last a million years and all that I'd push you towards Technics but honestly, spending extra money on the player itself is a waste for you at this point in time. It's the least effective place to put your money in terms of sound quality and you're not going to wear out a cheap turntable any time soon with your one record.

Uncle Long

If you're just looking for something to listen to records on then you shouldn't have any trouble picking up something cheap and simple like the "Ion," with the usb output so you can record your records (though 700 MB files are a bit cumbersome, some folks like the option). It's pretty basic otherwise. Built in preamp, you just kind of jack in to your stereo and away you go.

If you're more of an audiophile, you need to start looking at getting these things in pieces. Like most custom things (think computers) dedicated parts are better than integrated wholes. Buy the nice pre-amp, the nice amp, the nice speakers, receivers, turntables and cartridges. There's really no limit to how far you can push things and how much sound quality you can eek out.

Or you can go routing around in your pop's attic and see if you can't find something to play your records on up there.