Listening setup

A listening setup consists of a turntable, something that amplifies the signal, speakers or headphones, and a spot in the room where all of that sounds good together. Expensive equipment is not a requirement. This series covers those parts one by one, in the order you usually buy them.

Most people start with the turntable. What to look for is in the guide on buying a turntable: belt or direct drive, a replaceable stylus, and a preamp you can switch off if you later buy an amplifier with a phono input. How the turntable then connects to an amplifier, a receiver or active speakers, and what to do if it hums, is explained step by step in the guide on connecting your turntable. If you would rather connect it to a Bluetooth speaker, a soundbar or the TV you already have, the guide on a turntable on a Bluetooth speaker or soundbar covers which input to look for and what to expect from the sound; a cable in an aux input sounds better than Bluetooth, and many modern TVs no longer have an analogue input.Whether you need to buy a separate phono box for it is often not the case: check first whether there is already a preamp in the turntable or the amplifier, because two in a row is the most common mistake. When you do need one and what it should cost is in the guide on buying a phono preamp. If the turntable still hums afterwards, sounds quiet or you hear nothing, the guide on a turntable that hums or makes no sound goes through the causes in the order you check them; almost every fix costs nothing. An old turntable from the market can be more turntable for the same money, if the arm and the bearing are sound. What to check on the spot and what to add to the price is in the guide on buying a used turntable.

Then the speakers. In an ordinary living room, with neighbours and a sofa against the wall, big floorstanders rarely win. The guide on choosing speakers covers bookshelf or floorstanding, active or passive, and why placement does more than the price tag. How to place them in a room that seems too small, with the sofa against the wall and a sideboard as the only spot, is in the guide on speaker placement in a small room: first out of the corner and the sofa off the wall, and only then buy something. For the evenings when it has to stay quiet, there is the guide on headphones for your turntable, because a turntable has no headphone socket of its own.

The last part costs the least and is skipped most often: the place where you sit. The guide on setting up a listening corner starts with the chair and ends with the lamp, and shows why a cabinet that takes the weight does more than a new amplifier.

A mid-range turntable in a good spot, with a clean record and correctly set tracking force, sounds better than an expensive turntable on a wobbly cabinet. That goes for the whole setup: what you save by not taking the most expensive model is usually better spent on the speakers, on stands that put them at ear height, or on records.

You do not have to buy everything at once. Start with what you already have, and only buy the next part when you know what is missing.