Can't tell; have not yet gotten a working product.

Really poor quality control, defective product.

This turntable has been one of the worst experiences I have had buying audio gear.

I read the great reviews in the mags, and decided to buy one from Northern Audio (Audiogon ad). After two weeks anticipation the table arrived. After unpacking I noticed the tonearm bearing was really loose and actually made a clacking sound when I moved the tonearm. I figured this couldn't be good. Next, I saw that the cartridge cantilever was severely bent, and without any protection of any kind. Clearly, this was a defective product, so I called Northern Audio.

Mark was apologetic and promised a fix once he spoke to Roy Hall at Music Hall. After a few phone calls we agreed Mark at Northern Audio would send a replacement tonearm for the defective one. A couple of weeks later the new tonearm arrived, with a replacement cartridge.

It was hard to say which was the worse tonearm. The new one had a snapped off tonearm lifter. But it got worse: after looking more carefully at the arm I realized the headshell was cocked at at least a 20 degree angle to the plinth. The arm was severely twisted!

At this point I was really disappointed and frustrated. I got out the LISTENER review and called the Music Hall number listed. I actually got Roy Hall, who designed and sells the turntable. He listened to my problem and decided I had bad luck. But, he would be happy to replace my turntable once new ones came in from England, perhaps 10 days or so.

I said I really didn't want another turntable, after seeing all the quality issues. Roy said I had to go through the dealer, he really couldn't help me.

Unfortuately, Northern Audio does not give refunds (nice to find out AFTER you need one). All I could get was another one of these (when they become available).

Obviously, I am really frustrated with this situation, and I would not recommend buying this turntable, even from a reputable dealer. The quality control is non-existent, and I guess you get what you pay for.

I will post an update later.

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Rega, Linn, SOTA, etc.

great sound

set up completely wrong outof box. The manual is incomplete and unhelpful

Supposedly this turntable comes ready to go right out of the box. wrong! When I did the minimal set up from the manual the cartridge was dragging on the record surface. I finally figured out that the tonearm was twisted so one side of the cart. hit the record. I was so annoyed that in desperation I took some needle nose plyers and tried to bend the arm back to shape. it turns out that its adjustable even though there is no mention of it in the manual(or it could be just loose , I'm not really sure). I couldn't believe it, I was about to pack it up and send it back . really annoying. The manual ,generally, is just plain inaccurate, screws are in different places or don't exist, directions for set up are incorrect . But after the pain set up problems I had this is a great sounding turntable. I now prefer buying vinyl to cds, it's that much better. I also got a nad preamp when I got this and that enriched the sound almost as much as getting the new turntable. one thing to note: this is a totally manual turntable including changing speeds. you have to remove the platter and switch the belt position on the motor. kind of a pain

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many cheaper japanese made turntables

Inaccurate Instruction Manual, short audio leads

What a pleasant suprise when my MMF-5 arrived. Getting past the obviously inaccurate and weakly written manual (could use some pictures, parts descriptions that match, and/or some sketches, as well as rewrite of the text) I hooked this Turntable up to my system (a Revox Exception E-450 Amp driving a set of Altec Santana's), dug out the LP's and settled back to be treated to $2K worth of sound from a $1/2K Turntable! Sure glad to be back with the sound of vinyl!

Wouldn't hesitate to recommend both the MMF-5 and Music Advisor.

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Several - MMF-5 replaced an ancient TT that died courtesy mother nature.

For those who hear a slight swishing noise coming from the motor area, as did one of the reviewers here, and as I did when mine came in, the problem is incredibly simple to fix. It's not in the motor. The rpm adapter that sits on the motor spindle may be too low, and rubbing on the plinth. There is a small set screw that holds it to the spindle. Simply loosen the screw and raise the part one or two millimeters and tighten. Gone is the swishing sound. It was never a serious problem, but it's nice to have it worked out.

FYI.

Outstanding value. Simple and well built. Goldring Cartridge. Great for money money.

Arm looks cheap, felt platter cover blows off when removing an album to quickly.

Bought it over the web. Great deal and very fast shipping as I received it in 4 days from the West Coast. Opened the sealed box to find that Music Hall had only screwed in one of the three transit stabilizer screws. The others had worked their way to the bottom of the carton. Checked it out closely and did not find any obvious damage so I set it up. The Music Hall MMF-5 table is a joy to use. It appears I have not lost my educated thumb in the past year that I've been without a usable table. I was a bit concerned as the arm looks like someone smacked the end of a hollow tube with a hammer and attached a cartridge to it. Looks aside, the arm tracked and performed as well as my old Infinity Black Widow. Really love the overall look and performance. You will not beat this table, arm, and cart for under 700 bucks. I am very pleased.

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Rega, Old marble pioneer

Almost "plug and play" simplicity. Performance way above expectations. Almost all of the magic of vinyl at an amazing price.

Tone arm needs to be balanced with a scale. Arm may not be compatible with a wide range of cartridges.

I have a huge collection of vinyl, but was spending most of my listening time with CD, listening to a second system that serves the living room and kitchen. I wanted to get vinyl capability for the second system in a simple package that anyone (spouse, guests, etc.) could use without fear of destruction of the Benz cartridge in the main system. What a treat this turntable turned out to be! I don't know how good it could be, as I'm listening to it through the phono section of a Sony receiver. Even with that it blows away CD. If you have any interest in vinyl and can afford this product, I would highly recommend it, particularly if you are not enamored of the "tweakiness" of vinyl and just want a simple, good-sounding turntable.

I agree with another reviewer that you should use a scale to set the tracking force on the arm. I couldn't figure out how to get a calibrated force after balancing the arm, but fortunately had a cheap scale available. These scales are useful to anyone who likes to set up cartridges anyway, and as someone said, the SHure only costs $20.

Another question I have is how compatible this turntable will be with other cartridges. It seems to lack the slots that allow adjustment of the cartridge's position on the headshell. This isn't an issue at the moment, because I think the Goldring cartridge supplied with the turntable is very good, although obviously not as refined as my Benz Ruby, it offers a great deal of information for such a reasonable price.

I own several high value and several high performance components. I would rate the MMF 5 among the best values I have encountered in over 30 years of audio. Long live vinyl!

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Thorens, Linn LP-12

Really brings out the sound in my old LPs.
Lots of nice features for a reasonable price.
Looks great.

I don't know, I haven't really compared it to the high-end turntables.

I've read all the reviews for the MMF 2 and I'd say this turntable fixes a lot of the quality and build issues mentioned there and adds a lot of nice features also.

The first thing you'll notice is that it has a thick, heavy glass platter. I'm not quite sure how this adds to the performance, but it certainly enhances the looks. It has a split plinth that isolates the tone arm from the motor and other vibrations. It comes with a Goldring G1012 cartridge with elliptical stylus, which is a big improvement over the cartridge that comes with the MMF 2.

This turntable will make your LPs sound great. If you haven't really listened to vinyl in a long time (like me), then you'll be amazed. Getting this turntable is largely responsible for making me upgrade my whole system because once I started listening to records, I realized how crappy my CDs were really sounding!

By the way, if you want the best sound from your system, be sure you also get a good phono stage. The phone stage in most receivers these days is crap.

This turntable lists for $499, including cartridge.

Associated equipment: ARC LS16, ARC 100.2, Mistral phone stage, NHT 2.5is.

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Harmon Kardon, Thorens, B&O (but the last two were a long time ago)

Everything

None so far

Was not ready for what I was about to hear after 15 years of just using CD's. Yes I went out and bought my first CD player the first day they were out for 725.00. The only thing close to Rock on CD was Thriller. Was caught in that trap CD's sound so good, no clicks and pops. Well I gave in and was going to upgrade my Yamaha, new wiring and cartridge and see what all the talk was about. The people at MusicDirect told me not to upgrade but go new with the MMF-5 which comes with a really nice cartridge. I took their advice and I cannot believe what I have missed all these years. I thank God everytime I listen I kept all my LP's and took such good care of them. Within 3 weeks I upgraded to a Grado Sonata which puts this TT in a class with TT's costing many times more. A friend was over who has some of the best and high priced equipment out there and looked at me with disbelief after hearing it. His 2 last comments were: 1. My $2600.00 VIP doesn't sound as good as this, and 2. A $425.00 TT should not sound this good. Needless to say I am very happy with my MMF-5. One last thing if you need any kind of customer service or just to talk about the MMF-5 Roy Hall of Music Hall is always there and ready to help.

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Top of the line in 1986 Yamaha TT

Build, sound, features

set-up, cartridge, rca coords, power coord

Warning, this will be long. Out of the box mine didn't work. I checked cartridge alignment, tone arm VTA, adjusted tracking force using shure stylus pressure guage, and ensured the anti-scating line was placed in the middle indent as called for when using the supplied cartridge. BTW, I adjusted the tone arm without the stylus guage and when I went to check it, it was rite on the money? Maybe they have recalibrated the weights or something. When tracking, the cartridge would touch the record and Music Direct recommended I raise the VTA to a point where it wouldn't touch. I did so, but the arm was rasied to a point where you could barely close the lid without it touching the counter weight. I got it to track, but had to turn the volume on my receiver almost all the way up to get any kind of output, it was like the stylus would not support any weight. Music Direct got in touch with Music Hall and got me a new stylus (took over a week). I put the new stylus on and still nothing. At this point I decided to put the old stylus back on and experiement with the VTA and tracking adjustments to see if I could make it work. I pulled the stylus from the cartridge and the needle came out of the plastic part and was just hanging from the cartridge. I couldn't believe it. There was a little rubber ring and a thin peice of wire, just hanging there. I put the old needle back on and after setting the VTA to a point where it was at a 45degree angle I got it to work. However, if the force was set too high there was distortion, if set lower it would not track properly. I set it to a point where as long as I got is started past the first part of the record it would work. I still had to raise the volume level very high to get any kind of decent output, but man the sound was absolute amazing. I was playing it in stereo direct on my receiver and thougt I had inadvertently turned on a surround mode. The sound stage was wide, deep and detailed with exceptional seperation between instruments. Best sound I have ever experienced from a TT, but it still had problems. I couldn't live with the arm set at this angle and certainly couldn't live with it not starting at the first groove of the record. I called the dealer again and explained what happened, I know they thought I didn't know what I was doing and was tearing the stylus' up, but that is not the case. I've adjusted many TT's in my time and do know how to set them up porperly, but of course they have no way of knowing that. I was going to send it back and get the rega-2 and had made a deal with Music Direct to do so, but I REALLY want this TT and couldn't get that amazing sound out of my mind. I decided to go to Radio shack and pick up the cheapest cartridge I could find and see if the cartridge was in fact the problem. I set VTA back to normal, put on the new cartridge and made all necessary tracking, cartridge and anti-skating adjustments. Guess what, tracks and works perfect. The cartridge/stylus sounds is not very impressive, but hey it was $24. What a delima. Music Direct admitted they had others who had to set the VTA very high and that I was not the first one that had this problem with the cartridge/stylus set-up. I know this TT must work with this set-up as this is the cartridge that's supplied and others are using it? I am going to keep the TT, but I need to get a new cartridge. I don't know what Music Direct will do at this point, but I will find out when I call them in a while. I have a great TT, just need to find a good cartridge. I just wonder if the cartridge it'self is not the problem with the low output I experienced? Anyhow, a great TT and if your luck enough to get it without a defective cartridge and sylus I think it's the best TT deal on the planet. 4 star overall rating because of the problems I've had which may not be the norm?

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Numerous TT's in the past, but just getting back in to vinyl after many years.

Incredible sound at an affordable price.

There was a time when I was addicted to music. Suddenly I stopped listening. I thought I was getting old. After purchasing the Music Hall Turntable and listening for about a month, I realized that the reason I had lost interest in music was due to the CD. The MMF 5 sounds superior to any CD player I have owned and exceeds all expectations that I had. Highly recommended. My music habit has been reborn.