Thoughts on the Music Hall MMF-2.1

Since I rewired that Music Hall turntable a few weeks ago, I’ve been giving it a chance in my main system to see how it behaves. I had mixed feelings when I bought it, and that has not changed. I certainly have reservations about recommending it to anyone, but in actuality, it is not really a bad little turntable. Confused? Read on.

When I bought the turntable, I knew it had a few “issues”. The worst problem it had was a broken tonearm wire. It is a known problem: the wiring inside this tonearm is so fragile, the cartridge clips are known to break off easily. Part of the flaw is that the wires are not terminated on the headshell end: on other tonearms, the fragile wires are soldered to a small printed circuit board, or terminated in better wires so that the routine handling of cartridge swapping does not put any stress on the wires. Given the low-quality cartridge sold on a new MMF-2.1, a cartridge upgrade is probably the first step to making the system sound better.

As mentioned in my article, linked above, I rewired the tonearm, and it is now playable. The other issue I had with this turntable was missing parts: it did not ship to me with a turntable mat, and the antiskating weight was also missing. Fortunately, I have a really good mat here to use on it, and I improvised my own antiskating device. For the cartridge, I installed my Dynavector DV10X3, which is a high-output moving coil cartridge with an elliptical stylus. It has its own issues (a dull overall sound, and mediocre tracking ability), but at least with less stressful recordings, it should do well.

So, I now have some impressions about the turntable. I’ll focus on sound quality later on. After using the MMF-2.1 for a few weeks, I noticed a few design shortcuts that ultimately diminish my own experience with this turntable. Here is what I found:

  1. The turntable has feedback, in spades. This turntable need serious isolation, and the dustcover should be removed while playing. This is due to the low mass of the turntable base. Even when I had the MMF-2.1 on a sturdy stand, across the room from the speakers, I got enough feedback to where I could only turn the volume up so far before the woofers started howling. To isolate this turntable, I recommend finding some kind of isolation platform that is designed for a lightweight turntable. The base of the MMF-2.1 looks like it is basically cut from a 3/4″ sheet of MDF.
  2. Very important: you cannot use some moving coil cartridges on the MMF-2.1! The Dynavector DV10X3 has magnets strong enough to pull the cart into the platter. I could not balance the tonearm for zero VTF when it was suspended over the platter–it had me stumped until I took off the turntable mat and the cartridge actually snapped to the stamped steel platter! Given this problem, I would recommend only a moving magnet cartridge for the MMF-2.1; anything with a stronger magnet is going to throw off your tracking force considerably!
  3. Antiskating is only adjustable in three steps. So it can never be optimal unless you get lucky. Antiskating is adjusted by moving the loop on the weight string into one of three notches. I supposed one could thread a small nut or washer onto the weight to fine-tune it, but that seems to be a lot of work.
  4. The motor mount is clever (the motor is suspended by a clamped o-ring), but that is also its weakness: the motor in mine sits slightly sideways, so the top of the belt is close to rubbing on the top of the pulley. I did try various positions and tensions on the o-ring suspending the motor, but it made little difference. I also wonder if many MMF-2.1 owners even remove the two shipping screws from the motor assembly when they set it up!
  5. The platter is stamped steel, and rings like a bell. How can this be good? Some kind of rubberized or foam “flocking” sprayed underneath would probably help things. My turntable mat, a “Music Mat” made in Canada, is made out of a dense, high-quality rubber-like material, so it is great at damping some of these reflections. But with a lesser mat, I doubt that the platter would be damped enough.
  6. I found that speed stability is OK, but not perfect. Accuracy is pretty good though.

There are a few other engineering shortcuts as well, but nothing that really affects the sound quality. The platter is stamped steel and rings like a bell, where the subplatter is a very lightweight plastic. The hinges are nothing more than an L-shaped metal rod that is clamped in a plastic clip.

Despite these issues, the MMF-2.1 does not sound half bad. The Dynavector is no great cartridge, but the speed stability was pretty good and it still had a musical quality to it that was not unpleasant to listen to. I’d really liked to have tried it with a better cartridge, like the Audio Technica AT440MLa that is all the rage these days.

For an entry level turntable, I could imagine doing a lot worse. Unfortunately, for the money, you could do better. The list price on a current MMF-2.1 is $349, which is in the neighborhood of other entry-level tables from companies like Rega, or squarely within range of many competent “vintage” used turntables. If this were $149 or even $199 with the throwaway cartridge, I’d give it a warm recommendation. Otherwise, I feel it is too expensive, especially given its mechanical shortcomings. It just does not have the same solid feel I got from older turntables, like the 70s-era direct drive I own that I use as my “beater”.

If you manage to pick one up used, it would make a great platform to perform a few tweaks on it, such as deadening the platter, building a more massive base, adding better isolation, etc. And, rewiring the tonearm before something snaps off inside. The potential is there for improvement!