I have a Yamaha P200 turntable which I want to hook up to a Kenwood Home Theatre system. I've plugged into AUX and also tried CD/DVD, but the volume is very faint. Am I trying to do something the Home theatre isn't designed for, do I need to get my old AMP out to listen to my old records?
As Dale says very succinctly, you need a phono stage (or preamp). The output of the turntable is very low compared to a line level source such as a CD/DVD/Tuner. The phono stage is a low noise preamplifier which boosts the signal from a turntable to that around, but usually not as loud as, your other sources. In th eold days, amplifiers always had phono stages built in for turntable sources. Nowadays it's rare to get a home theatre amp with a phono stage built in.
The phono stage is a box between the turntable and the Kenwood system. You will therefore also need an interconnect to connect the phono stage to the Kenwood. Apart from having better sound quality due to the lower noise environment that an external phono stage enjoys, you will also benefit should you ever need or want to change your system since the external phono stage will work on any amplifier you choose.
Inexpensive phono stages start at around $40. The cheapest I have heard are the NAD PP2 and the Pro-ject Phono Box, both of which retail for under $100 as far as I know.
Finally, if you don't want to spend the money you may have another option. If your old amp has a tape loop, you could plug in your turntable to the old amp and then use the tape-out of your old amp to feed one of the inputs (any) of the Kenwood. Provided you leave your old amp switched to the Phono input, this will work perfectly well.
Anybody have any recomendations on a good but relatively cheap new "home theatre" receiver that has phono inputs? I'm looking to spend ~$200 US, and am trying to avoid having to invest in a phono pre-amp. (on a side note some guy at CircuitCity just tried to sell me a pioneer w/out phono inputs and convince me that I could just use the Aux....very helpful)
Don't know of any home theater receiver that has a phono stage, but you can get a phono preamp (for magnetic catridges only) at radio shack for about $25 that you can connect to the aux input on the receiver. I think it's available on their online store only. It's the cheapest option I can think of. The sound quality of the preamp is reportedly not too shabby.
Anonymous
Posted on
new here -
can anyone tell me how to adjust the speed on this turntable? I've got one, and it's running a little fast.