You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Wishing to rediscover my vinyl collection....
I bought a Thorens TD166mk2 on Ebay for £69 yesterday fully working from a hifi shop.
I now need a phono stage and cartridge.
Going into Audiolab 8000p and 8000s pre and power amps and AVI biggatron speakers (Neutrons unfortunately named bigger brothers)
Wishing I hadn't sold my Rega Planar 3 now but then it did fund my bike buying habit.....
It's a good deck and I would suggest that the first thing you do is get it off the floor, a dedicated wall shelf is essential (unless you have concrete floors in which case you'll get away with a stand). You should be able to pick one up for around 50 on ebay.
In terms of cartridges and stages depends on budget.
Richer sounds do a stage http://www.richersounds.com/product/phono-pre-amps/cambridge-audio/azur-551p/camb-551p-blk which has good things said about it and is pretty flexible in terms of what it will run. You'll be able to use both Moving Magnet and Moving Coil cartridges with it. The Project phono box is a good little stage for not too much money but I think it's moving magnet only.
However you could spend a little more and look at a S/H Trichord Dino or something like that.
Ortofon do a good range of MM cartridges for decent prices all of which will be fine. You'll not go far wrong with an Audio Technica, Ortofon, Goldring or Denon.
My personal favorite cartridge is the Audio Technica AT33PTG which is the nuts for around £350 on ebay and was much better than my Lyra or Van Den Hul which both cost loads more than it.
I'm assuming you've set up a deck before but if not you'll need a stylus protractor, stylus gauge and lightweight sprit level too, there's loads of tutorials online for setting a deck up properly.
I did my entire collection with this setup; and continue to do so as I buy new vinyl all the time. I remember doing a lot of research at the time, and this was the best bang for buck I could get, and I'm more than happy with the results. Of course, you can throw thousands at it, and it's something you only want to do once.
Technics SL-1200 MKII (I already had this)
[img] 
[/img]
Denon DL-110 Cartridge. About £60
[img] 
[/img]
TCC TC-750LC Preamp. Can't remember how much this cost. Not a lot certainly.
[img] 
[/img]
M-Audio Delta 1010 Soundcard. Overkill for this job but it's what I had.
[img] 
[/img]
Just use half-decent cables and record at the highest resolution possible in your software. I used Steinberg's Wavelab, but anything will do really. You can then keep these 'masters' and make various copies for different needs. Say goodbye to your life for the time being 🙂 Great winter project though.
Oh, and make sure your turntable is level and on a sturdy surface.
Edit: Just noticed you didn't ask about copying your collection. D'oh, I'll leave it in case anyone's interested. 😀
I'm happy with [url= http://www.gspaudio.co.uk/gram-amp-2-communicator-phono-stage-preamp.htm ]this phono stage[/url]
I'd plumb for an Ortofon 2M Red as they're not too expensive (£60) and for the phono stage get a Graham Slee Gram Amp 2 (£160) and your sorted. You'll easily sell the Slee if you get fed up of vinyl as well. Nice tt you bought, it was my first "real" hifi turntable until I bought my Linn LP12. Bargain price as well you got it for.
My personal favorite cartridge is the Audio Technica AT33PTG which is the nuts for around £350 on ebay and was much better than my Lyra or Van Den Hul which both cost loads more than it.
I have an AT MC cartridge on my Logic DM101/Zeta TT, and I have feeling it's an AT33. I was given it... 😀
Second the DL-110/160 if it suits your arm. Best carts below a Benz Ace IMO and could easily cost double relative to the other crap out there.
No idea what your budget is, DNM stuff was amazing IME in the day, I think a battery phono stage is the way to go but then I'd flog the "What Hi Fi award perennial winner" Audiolab for Crimson etc so what do I know