📣 News ELAC Miracord 50 Turntable deal

Looking around at some ELAC Uni-Fi UB5 speakers for someone in the family, I ended up at ELAC's site and found that they are offering the Miracord 50 turntable for $249.98, on sale from $399.98. I've heard the top-of-the-line Miracord 90 at AXPONA and also made note of its excellent build quality. (It has since been replaced by the Miracord 80.)

All Miracords are built in Germany.

The Miracord 50 comes with an Audio Technica AT-91 cartridge and has a defeatable on-board phono stage, so that the output can be connected to any system even if it lacks a phono input. (A phono stage amplifies the cartridge to line level and also applies the RIAA curve.) The 50 is belt-drive and DC-powered, with both 33⅓ and 45 RPM speeds available. Reviews seem favorable, and many have upgraded to better cartridges. (An Audio-Technica with their Microline stylus would be a great upgrade for this unit.)

Details and specs here:

ELAC Miracord 50 Turntable - MRC-501

Looking for more information on ELAC Miracord 50 Turntable - MRC-501? Click to learn more and shop now from ELAC!

www.elac.com

And purchase from ELAC America here:

Miracord 50 Turntable

Smooth vinyl precision. ELAC’s Miracord 50 Turntable is designed to deliver exceptional vinyl transcription, inspired by the iconic Miracord name from the Golden Age of Stereo, when turntables reigned supreme. The Miracord 50 is carefully engineered with a belt-drive motor and die-cast aluminum...

elac-america.myshopify.com

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I will occasionally post deals I find online, as I sometimes get asked for recommendations on specific components.

 

[Bobberman]

Does this turntable have pitch control? I always used turntables with that feature I find it extremely helpful to get my sound spot on.

 

[Rudy]

Belt drive turntables usually don't have pitch adjustment, unless they build a speed controller into them. Some turntables can use an external speed controller, but only if they are driven by AC motors that plug directly into the wall. Some turntables today use an external power adapter and the turntable uses a DC motor instead of AC, so the speed controllers will not work on those. The rear of this ELAC shows it takes a DC input:



What's nice is that you can use any audio interconnect vs. being stuck with the one attached to the table. That way if the RCA plugs ever go bad (as I've had them do on older turntables), just replace them and the problem is solved.

I would be more apt to use a direct drive if I wanted speed control, which I have now. The table I traded in last June had a DC motor but had an on-board speed control which you could set in 0.1 RPM increments, but the adjustment on the Technics has a wider range, especially as it has a 1X/2X pitch range selection for the slider, and a "reset" button to bypass the slider so the speeds are perfect.



In the past, the strobe light was lit by a neon light which attached directly to the AC power line (through a resistor), so the "pulse" of the neon light would be either 60 Hz (US) and 50 Hz (some other countries abroad). This assumed nearly accurate speeds (depending on how stable the incoming 50 Hz or 60 Hz were). And the markings were as such:




With my SL-1210G, the strobe light is pulsed by electronics on board, so the strobe with the largest dots is always the one to reference. (This table plays 33⅓, 45, 78.) But the alternate strobes are percentages of the base speed instead:



I have a feeling that the percentages relate to half-tones in music. When I did a needle drop of the Brothers Johnson 12-inch single of "Strawberry Letter #23," which was sped up by a half-tone in mastering, setting it at the proper speed resulted in the bottom row of the strobe dots being stationary.