Thanks Chris! Yes, £25 bagged it! 
Barrie
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Just received another bluetooth receiver for the amp in the lounge. Its identical to the other one I purchased almost 2 years ago. That one went into the garden bar for outdoor music. As it has performed faultlessly in those two years, I decided to buy another! Mpow is the brand off Amazon at £14.99 delivered complete with 3.5mm jack/jack, 3.5mm jack/twin RCA phono and a USB charging cable too! Very easy to pair and connect to my vintage AIWA amp/tuner via rear RCA sockets.
Anyway, snapped a few pics of the system in the twilight
Lovely display to look at
the silver fronted separates I really do like! They don’t sound too bad either 
Barrie
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Looks a great set up Barrie👍
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Thanks Andrew, I sort of keep drifting in and out of the hi fi stuff while doing other stuff. Nice to have it sat there, ready for when I want to listen to things. None of it has cost a lot, which is a nice bonus 
Barrie
Hi everyone! I’ve been considering a new turntable to fit in with my collection. Contrary to the ethos of this whole topic, I’ve purchased one of these!
Certainly don’t need (or want) the USB feature but can’t get a new one without it 
Bought off Amazon for £208 delivered! Bit of a bargain hopefully. Not in stock at time of purchase but also out of stock on Audio-Technica website too! I’m not in a hurry really, had one in my basket on Amazon at £240, got a msg today to say it was reduced to £215, so had a look. Got to checkout and a further £7 discount applied! What’s not to like, I thought
It ships with this head shell
and cartridge which is £70 on its own so a new direct drive TT for £140 is great.
Never owned a brand new TT before! Didn’t want to spend more than I had to and this is just the ticket for me!
Various replacement styli available from a conical £19 jobby, to this Shibata stylus at £160
So plenty of options to upgrade ( if I ever get that far) the stylus itself. I like the idea of fully manual, direct drive and pitch control with quartz lock. Alloy platter and other features. Might pair it with the equally modern Sony STR-190 amp and the Polk T50 floorstanders. The ONKYO/LEAK/AIWA stuff can have a rest then!
I’m not capable of appreciating audiophile quality gear, my ears are shot, my pockets aren’t deep enough and I don’t really have a dedicated room without compromises, so something like this is ideal. It’s certainly budget friendly but far better than some of the low end gear currently on offer! Will keep this updated when I’m notified of a delivery date 
Barrie
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Looking Good Barrie! Nowt wrong with AT turntables!
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Thank you Roger! I’m looking forward now to receiving it! The DC power source is external to the deck. It also has separate RCA phono sockets so a better quality set of leads can be used too!
Barrie
Hi Barrie,
As Roger states - nowt wrong with AT turntables.
This particular one, as you’ve already discovered, has a USB connection to plug into your PC. Now you can begin the unenviable task of digitizing all your vinyl records ! Don’t laugh my friend, you will soon get hooked.
The eventual upside, is that you can make huge playlists on your computer, to play hours and hours of music, through your chosen system, at a party or whatever, without having to go back to the hi-fi every 20 minutes to turn the record over.
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Hi Chris! Never actually considered this as an option? My lad (youngest one) has loads of vinyl, far more than me TBH. This may become an opportunity to ‘snaffle’ some of his collection I’ve seen this particular TT at just under £300 so I feel I’ve done really well Haven’t mentioned it to Mrs B yet but she might just think its something I already had!
Barrie
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One of these days Barrie you’ll find out that she’s been doing some “stock taking” and she’ll catch you out! Beware brother, beware!!!
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who me? 
I think she does all this in secret Roger! She’s probably way ahead of where I think I am!!
Barrie
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So you want a nice turntable because you have lots of vinyl and like the analogue vinyl sound. Now here’s the thing. Vinyl is easily damaged though and will degrade with playing too. While you sit back in your chair and listen to your precious vinyl you might as well digitise it at the same time. You can store hundreds of albums on one USB stick and you have a copy forever. You can also have the vinyl sound in the car or anywhere else. Scratch one of your albums and all is not lost. Listen to the digitised copy and you can still sit reading the sleeve notes!
Many years ago I replaced my favourite vinyl albums with CDs. One or two that I couldn’t get I digitised from vinyl. Since then I’ve ditched all the CDS.
All my music is stored on the hard disc of my desktop PC. There is also another copy of everything on an external hard drive connected to my media player connected to the TV and surround system. Then there are two more copies on USB drives in both of our cars. Nobody is ever going to catch me with the old ‘Did you do a backup?’ line…
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Good to learn that you are doing the necessary back-ups Roadie - you never can tell when these computer thingies are going to let you down.
Which is why I’ll never get rid of my CDs or my vinyl - I’m rather old-fashioned like that ! Hell, I’ve still even got cassettes !
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Yes Chris, that’s me too, I’ve even got a couple of dozen 78’s, at least, and of course the 401 has three speeds, and I’ve got the proper styli for the Shure cartridge.
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Just had a quick look on Amazon to check on progress of TT. Yesterday, I purchased for £208, this morning was £222, later on it is £230 and still pre order as none in stock! Glad I jumped in when I did! I think the AIWA AP-2200 TT was feeling a bit left out so gave it a bit of a ‘tune’ using this,
this,
and this,
I checked and reset the tone arm balance, cartridge alignment and overhang and also tracking force and anti skate. Its quite an enjoyable task TBH 
I do have one issue to resolve though, the tone arm gets to a point (typically around the last track) where it wont go any further and starts to skip/jump. On certain albums, with less tracks, it won’t get to the auto return point either. Not too much a problem though, just treat it as a fully manual set up would be nice to get it right though. I will disconnect it from the system and investigate at some point It’s what prompted me to check the settings as I thought maybe the tracking force and anti skate were off?
Currently listening to The Associates ‘Party fears two’ as it’s a track prior to where the tone arm starts playing up one of my albums, and it did!
Barrie
Right, pulled the deck out of the system and took it downstairs for a better look!
I started looking at speed adjustments as, although it runs correctly, all the adjustment is taken up at one end of the thumb wheels for each speed? I reckon that the thumb wheels should be more central with fine adjustments at each side of mid position.
So, I discovered two pots marked VR01 and VRO2 which actually control the speed.
By very carefully adjusting each in turn, with the thumb wheels set at mid position, i now have almost perfect speed at each setting!
I think its near enough!
Going to have a look at the tone arm adjustments next to see if I can cure that issue!
Barrie
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How do you adjust those VR speed thingies Barrie?
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Hi Roger, in the middle of each one is a tiny slot for a screwdriver? They are ‘fixed’ at the factory to correct speed then a blob of paint on each to keep it locked. By scratching the paint blob off, it frees the pot for adjustment. By careful steps, I got the speeds near perfect! Thumbwheels are now more or less equidistant from each end etc
Barrie
Thanks Barrie, I did wonder about the slots but didn’t want to jump to conclusions!
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Barrie, I’ve always marvelled at your willingness to have these complex pieces of electronic wizardry in bits on your workbench, and your almost total record (sorry for the pun) of success stories in righting wrongs.
Respect !
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