TEAC - Turntable - Black
Model: TN-550
SKU: 5196606
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I've had this turntable for about a week now. Very high quality look and feel and easy to set up. The included cartridge (AT100E) is OK, but not great. I immediately replaced it with an AT440mla that I had on hand (really just a stylus swap as the cartridge bodies are identical). The platter speed seems accurate and steady, but I don't have a strobe so that's just a subjective listening observation. This table is very quiet. If I put my ear near the motor I can hear a faint whirring sound, but I can't hear it from my listening position and the belt drive seems to effectively isolate the motor noise from the platter. My initial music listening impression is that this turntable is a significant upgrade from the mid-level vintage direct drive turntables and Pro-ject Debut Carbon that I've had before. The background is very quiet and ticks and pops from record surface imperfections seem to be less prominent than I've experienced on other tables. A good recording on well pressed vinyl sounds very 3 dimensional on this table. I'm a big fan of removable headshells like this tonearm has. It makes it so much easier to change a cartridge. Once you get a cartridge properly installed on the headshell it's just plug-and-play. That gives you the flexibility to use different cartridges for different records (for example, a mono record or a beat up record that you don't want to use an expensive cartridge on or maybe you prefer the sound of an MC cartridge on jazz). I can't imagine trying to swap out a cartridges for different records on a tonearm with a fixed headshell. My one complaint about this turntable is the height adjustability on the tonearm. Having a height adjustable tonearm is a great feature, but the way that Teac implemented it on this table takes away much of its usefulness. Even with the tonearm at its lowest setting the arm is still at a very slight downward slope from the bearing end of the tonearm to the cartridge end with the needle sitting on the record. You can't adjust the arm any lower so that means that you can't dial in the vertical tracking angle (VTA) just right. It's even worse if you remove the felt mat and place the record directly on the acrylic platter as some people like to do. If you happen to replace the stock cartridge with a shorter cartridge, you'll need to install it with spacer shims or the VTA will be off even more. Hopefully Teac will address this be offering a slightly taller replacement platter. Until then, I'll probably look for an extra thick platter mat to raise the record playing surface.
Posted by ward