Ok I just about have the money for my decks. I decided on the Technics 1200 md3'S. I am going with the Vestax 275 for my mixer. Headphones are gonna be Sony's MVDJ700 things or whatever they are called. Now I need to know a few things..... First cartridges and Stylus, what brand is the best, what is good for the money, when you buy them do they come together? Also slipmats, I heard that u really don't need slipmats unless u r going to scratch which I am not.... is this true? I know these are totally newbie questions but I live in friggin' Canton Ohio, there isnt a lot of DJ's floating around here that I can ask.

For cartridges/styli, I would say that Ortofon are the best. get the Concorde Nightclub E if you can afford them, thay have excellent sound quality and very good tracking. You always get a stylus when you buy a cartridge, but you can buy the replacement styli seperately.

Slipmats are absolutley essential! You cannot possibly DJ without them! How can you expect to stop a vinyl on the TT when there is a sticky rubber mat underneath it?

Hope that helps. Good luck with the spinnin!

We dont have any shops around ehre that carry DJ equipment so I gotta get all my shit online. All I can find is the Night Club S. Can u post a link for the Night Club E plz.

Oh one other thing... what are better the Night Club S or the Night Club E and when you buy cartridges do they come in pairs or just one cause Night Club S's are $149.99. I hope that is for 2.

The nightclub E has an elliptical needle which gives better tracking, better frequency response and wears down your vinyl less. The spherical version (nightclub S) is cheaper, but wears vinyl more and you don't get such a good high frequency response. On the plus side though, you get less surface noise from the record, because it doesn't reach as far down into teh groove.

You can get Nightclub E's from hollywooddj.com, URL: http://www.hollywooddj.com/orbrnigclub.html

They sell for $135 each (not a pair), but you get two spare styli in the set, so the three styli will probably last you about 2 years or more.

slipmats are fully necessary to beat match. you can't stop and go your vinyl correctly without it or with to original MK2 plastic slipmat. if you do so, the plate will stop too, and there will be an acceleration time, so it's not exact. with a slipmat, you stop only the vinyl.