Skip to main content

Akai AP-206 Turntable

It's been a while since we've posted audio gear on the blog.  But, I've finally gotten the time to finish a couple of turntables

This is one of my favorite turntables for not only it performs well and dead reliable, the operations are smooth and it looks great to boot!  This is one solid turntable.

In my honest opinion, the black finish is great.  It matches both modern and vintage pieces.  And, of course it has a nice tall platter and strobe to give a classy look.

The Akai AP-206 is a nice direct drive, 2-speed semi-automatic turntable.  It's well built and had good weight.  It's freshly serviced and ready to go to a new loving home.

Now, I've had to add a couple touches to this turntable to make it whole.  It was missing the headshell and cartridge:

1) is a very nice and light weight ADC headshell.  It is a great headshell as it has excellent rigidity, but light weight.

2) I've put a very nice Nagaoka MP-15 cartridge.  This is not your average entry level cartridge.  The current or updated is the Nagaoka MP-150 cartridge.  Nagaoka is one of my favorite cartridge manufacturers, especially their lower level cartridges.  I've owned the entire line up and the sound of these cartridges are really nice.  They have great bass, in comparison to a Shure.  They almost have a Grado feel but much cleaner sounding, especially the treble.  It's much more detailed than a similar Grado cartridge and much more lively and dynamic sounding over a Shure.

Overall, this is one great table that's in great shape and has a great cartridge.  The new owner will be quite happy with this setup!












Popular posts from this blog

Micro Seiki MR-622 Turntable

This is one of my greatest prize possessions, well for turntables.  The Micro Seiki MR-622 is a fabulous turntable, and definitely has been one of my favourite tables that I had the pleasure of owning. Everything about this turntable screams quality.  Even the 45rpm adapter seemed to be milled aluminum.  It has adjustable feet, a side pocket for accessories , a nice heavy die cast platter and even the top part of the plinth is cast.  All wrapped in a beautiful smoked dustcover and real wood sides. The Micro Seiki MR-622 is a fully manual, 2-speed, direct drive turntable.  This means, it's low maintenance and high reliability as there is less moving parts within the turntable.  It's just a huge motor, speed controls and Micro Seiki MA-202 tone arm, placed in a overly built plinth just like what one would expect from Micro Seiki. The MA-202 tone arm is a S-shaped tone arm with excellent tracking ability.  It has an adjustable counterweight and the...

Hitachi HT-45 Turntable

I know this turntable isn't of the norm that most people want as it doesn't give that vintage vibe. However, the Hitachi HT-45 is still a very capable turntable of the early 80s. Despite having a straight tone arm, it does mean it's a low mass tone arm and generally favours high compliant cartridges like Shures and Audio Technica. Since it was made during the early 80s, it is relatively slim line. However, it still has all the goodies of a capable turntable. It is a 2-speed, direct drive turntable with automatic return and pitch control. The overall build quality is pretty much standard of the 80s. And it's quite reliable. There isn't a lot of information out there, however, there's been a few rendition of this turntable, like the earlier or later HT-40S and the Baycrest models. The tone arm shaft is aluminium, and it's relatively easy to service so it's of decent quality. As well, the hinges are quite nice. It also features Hitachi's unitorque...

Yamaha YP-66 Turntable

The rosewood vinyl wrapped twin sibling of the Yamaha YP-221, they are the exactly the same other than the colour of the plinth and instead of silver plastic bits on the YP-221 the YP-66 has black bits. This is your typical belt drive turntable of the mid to late 70s.  It's a 2-speed with automatic return (semi-automatic).  It's a nice entry level turntable with all the decent built quality that you find on majority of the Japanese made tables of that era.  It has a good sized motor and a decent weight.  Yamaha tables are like Sony tables, they always have decent quality components and they always look nice to the eyes.  The slight smoked dustcover and the rosewood plinth makes it quite unique to look at. Sadly, the antiskate weight on our isn't original.  It was missing when we got it.  After a bit of research we found the appropriate weight and found an appropriate weight to retrofit into our table.  We found a nice brass weight to fit with ...