Best Analog for $10K


I’ve spent considerable money and time assembling a great all-digital two-channel audio system. I want to experience vinyl reproduction. My budget is $10-12K for turntable, arm, cartridge, phono cable, and phono stage.
Two things I do not want. One is to get on a spiraling upgrade path. The second is to avoid too much fiddling and tweaking and adjusting.
I am open to used or refurbished equipment, as well as new gear.
I primarily listen to Jazz and Rock music. Very little classical.
Thoughts?
imgoodwithtools

Showing 4 responses by atmasphere

no it's not because I refered in specific to the exactly and precise RIAA eq, additional I was precsie to post: whole LP playback process that between other things means a second inverse RIAA eq. and all the other " problems " through the analog rig.
@rauliruegas Tape has a pre-emphasis curve (recording) as does the LP; in playback both have an EQ curve. Here's a nice link that explores the topic in detail:
http://pspatialaudio.com/tape%20equalisation%20correction.htm
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With regards to my suggestion about the Technics SL1200G, Technics had done some of the best work with servo controls in their direct drive machines years ago. This culminating in the SP-10 MkIII which by no coincidence goes for 5 figures on ebay as its one of the best 'tables ever made. The new SL1200G takes that servo work to a new level- but instead of all analog controls the speed is computer servo controlled. Its firmware can be updated via an internal USB port. In a nutshell the competition is very hard pressed to come up with a machine that ticks so many of the boxes for this sort of price. We've been selling a turntable for the last 15-20 years (the Atma-Sphere 208) which I've seen take on turntables that cost multiples of what we want for ours but IMO the Technics is a better machine.
R2R does not suffer RIAA Eq. and the lowest bass registers / octaves are in stereo - unlike LP which are in mono.
This statement is incorrect. LP bass is mono **only if the bass was out of phase** in the original recording. Out of phase bass can knock a stylus out of the groove, but is something that only occurs if the recording engineer isn't careful when making a multi-channel recording- for example bass guitar notes being out of phase with kick drum.
The processing that is done in this case (if the processor is used at all) causes a passive circuit to make the bass mono below a certain frequency (usually about 80Hz, since bass below this frequency is the problem area and is heard by the human ear as omindirectional), **but only for a few milliseconds** until the bass event has passed.
R2R has EQ very similar to the RIAA in the bass region. Because of the requirements of gain, usually the tape EQ cuts off at a higher frequency than LP equalization- 30Hz is typical. Since we have enough gain to work with low output moving coil cartridges, when we set up tape EQ in our preamps we can cut off at 16Hz, but this pretty unusual.

Tape of course has EQ and its really not dramatically different from the RIAA curve- which is why its possible to build a preamp that has easily switchable EQ for tape and phono. Saying that tape doesn't suffer EQ is ridiculous.

One might keep in mind that tape is used to make a recording because its easily erased and edited; lacquers are not. However if you have any LPs made from R2R, you can hear when the tape is started at the beginning of the LP- the noise floor increases. LP is the mass media for the simple reason that is has wider bandwidth, lower distortion and lower noise than R2R, which makes it possible to encompass the R2R recording.
I posted that way because the playback process in R2R does not develops so many distortions as the LP playback whole process and because in the tape was not recorded the RIAA eq. curve and low registers comes in stereo.
@rauliruegas Just so you know, the bit of this statement after 'LP playback' is so garbled that it makes no sense. Could you restate it?
  I'm refering with analog to LPs, I'm not talking of analog tapes.
the LP has wider bandwidth, lower noise and lower distortion than tape. So this statement seems a bit conflicted.
@imgoodwithtools My recommendation is also the Technics SL1200G. This machine has the high end turntable industry shaking in its boots on account of Technics knows what they are doing and for a small manufacturer to do as well it would cost a bit more. The weak points of this machine are the platter pad and the arm (which is actually quite competent as tone arms go; but the 'table is nearly state of the art). This is going to gooble about 4K out of your budget. The Hana SH is a very nice and not crazy money moving coil cartridge that has spectacular reviews and would be a nice combo.

One thing to understand about analog: the ability of the arm to track the cartridge properly (which often has a lot to do with proper setup) is far more important than what cartridge you ultimately get. For this reason a less expensive cartridge can sound as good as a really expensive one if your setup is done correctly.

I recommend looking into a good tube phono section. Tip: a phono section has to be stable- if not it contributes significantly to ticks and pops.