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March 2, 2025
The Record Player Buying Guide: Crucial Gear for the Vinyl Listener and Collector
Turntables aren't just for DJs! At zZounds, for over 25 years, we've stocked high-end home audio components -- turntables, stylii, headphones, and hi-fi speakers -- to bring out the best from your records. Whether you're a beginner shopping for your first turntable, or an old-school vinyl aficionado dusting off your collection, it's important to have the right equipment to take in all this warm-sounding, analog music.
We get it: there's just something about taking out a record from a sleeve and viewing an album's artwork in real life, that a digital file, or CD, can't quite compete with. A resurgent record market is out there with pressing plants reissuing classic hits and the latest white label IDM jams. What do you need to play them? We'll answer all those questions for you in this Record Player's Buying Guide.
We get it: there's just something about taking out a record from a sleeve and viewing an album's artwork in real life, that a digital file, or CD, can't quite compete with. A resurgent record market is out there with pressing plants reissuing classic hits and the latest white label IDM jams. What do you need to play them? We'll answer all those questions for you in this Record Player's Buying Guide.
Turntable Equipment for the Thrift-Store Record Finder
These are the essentials for any beginning record player: a turntable with a phono preamp, a pair of powered speakers, and audio cables to connect them. This is the path of least resistance: beginner-friendly gear that will let you put a record on a platter, place the tonearm and stylus on a groove, push Play, and hear that music pumping out of your speaker system. If that's what you need, this is the system for you.
A phono preamp brings your turntable's output up to the line-level signal needed to feed powered speakers. If your turntable doesn't have this circuitry built in already, you'll want to pick up an external phono preamp, or connect your turntable to a stereo receiver with dedicated "Phono" inputs.
A phono preamp brings your turntable's output up to the line-level signal needed to feed powered speakers. If your turntable doesn't have this circuitry built in already, you'll want to pick up an external phono preamp, or connect your turntable to a stereo receiver with dedicated "Phono" inputs.
Audio-Technica AT-LP60XBT Belt-Drive Turntable with Bluetooth
$239.00
- No Credit Check6 x$39.83
- No Credit Check4 x$59.75
PreSonus Eris 3.5 Generation 2 Active Studio Monitors
$109.99
- No Credit Check6 x$18.33
- No Credit Check4 x$27.50
Turntable Equipment for Mr. and Ms. Audiophile
What makes the record sound as good as possible? It all begins at the source. A rigid tonearm that guides a high-quality needle around a platter driven by a steady, quiet motor, to send signal through a high-fidelity preamp, will always point you towards musical perfection. Add acoustically isolated reference speakers (or headphones) that deliver a neutral frequency response across a wide dynamic range -- one of the perks of hearing music on vinyl -- and you'll start swearing you can hear those low contrabass notes on Leonard Bernstein's rendition of Beethoven's 5th Symphony.
Audio-Technica AT-LP7 Manual Belt-Drive Turntable
$899.00
- 12 x$74.92
- 8 x$112.38
- No Credit Check6 x$149.83
- No Credit Check4 x$224.75
ADAM T8V Active Studio Monitor
$299.99
- 8 x$37.50
- No Credit Check6 x$50.00
- No Credit Check4 x$75.00
Audio-Technica AT-PEQ30 Stereo Phono Preamp/Equalizer
$199.00
- No Credit Check6 x$33.17
- No Credit Check4 x$49.75
Audio-Technica ATH-ADX5000 Audiophile Open-Air Dynamic Headphones
$1,999.00
- 18 x
- 12 x$166.58
- 8 x$249.88
Turntable Equipment for Converting Vinyl to Digital
As any dedicated crate-digger can tell you, there are certain records that have only been officially released on vinyl. Turntables have long been the source of audio for old-school tape-heads and remixers. Modern USB turntables can connect directly to your computer, so you can easily transfer your super-exclusive 12-inch discovery to an audio file. Audiophiles and archivists take this process one step further, connecting a phono preamp's analog outputs to a high-resolution digital audio interface. With a vinyl-to-digital copy this convincing, you might just leave your prized original safely on the shelf.
Pioneer DJ PLX-500 Direct-Drive Turntable with USB
$369.00
- 8 x$46.13
- No Credit Check6 x$61.50
- No Credit Check4 x$92.25
Kali Audio LP-6 V2 Powered Studio Monitor
$249.00
- No Credit Check6 x$41.50
- No Credit Check4 x$62.25
Turntable Accessories and More Home Audio Gear
You don't always have to buy a whole new turntable to get the feeling of owning a new turntable. Something as simple as a record brush and cleaner can easily bring new life to dusty, static-ridden records. A new elliptical cartridge (leave the spherical one to your scratching DJ friend) with a freshly minted stylus prolongs the lifetime of most records, and helps muddy-sounding ones return to their former glory. Even vinyl purists who have yet to embrace this new-fangled thing called "online music streaming" should welcome a Bluetooth transmitter/receiver that'll get audio from wireless devices into their favorite set of wired speakers -- or from your stereo system to a wireless speaker.
Audio-Technica VM520EB Elliptical Bonded Turntable Cartridge
$135.00
- No Credit Check6 x$22.50
- No Credit Check4 x$33.75