Count me as one who doesn’t subscribe to the Linn philosophy. I still believe the speakers should be the most important and therefore expensive component.+1. The self-serving Linn philosophy, that the turntable is the most important part of an analog playback system because it is first in the chain, and therefore the downstream components cannot correct for its shortcomings, is flawed in two ways:
1)While it is true that the downstream components cannot correct for the shortcomings of the turntable, it is also true that the turntable cannot correct for the shortcomings of the downstream components. So while both statements are true, neither has any significance.
2)The Linn philosophy totally ignores the **degree** to which different parts of the chain may adversely affect the sound.
In my case, MSRP of the turntable/tonearm/cartridge/phono stage was about 40% of the MSRP of the speakers. However the turntable and tonearm are vintage, and were purchased when prices were much lower than they are today .
Regards,
-- Al