2. analog
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Forum admiration and requested guidance

My day starts by reading the top post on this site while drinking my morning coffee. I have been a audio enthusiast since the early 1970’s, with my mother playing Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis and The Supremes on vinyl every Saturday morning while growing up.

I’ve always had an analog system to play, and cherish my vinyl collection. It started with my first purchase in 1975 with Led Zeppelin Houses of the Holy and expanded over the years.
Advance 47 years later and I’m finally in a point of my life to splurge. My wife and I put three children thru college and she has given the approval to spend a little money for my love of the audio hobby.

Today I have the following system and looking for advice on going up the ladder of sound quality improvement.

- VPI Scout with JMW 9” arm and Hana SL cartridge 
- Elac PPA-2 phono preamp
- Vincent SA-32 preamp
- Parasound A23
- Q Aqoustics 3050i

some of the biggest improvements since building this system have been in the interconnects. I went with the Mogami 2549 interconnects and Canare 4S11 speaker cables. These really opened up the soundstage and appealed to my ears.

My music room is modest at 10 x 18 with 9 foot ceilings. Please don’t advise to enjoy and buy more vinyl. I truly look up to your advise and suggestions on next steps to improve. My budget today is $10k, with an additional $10k in mid 2022.

Thank in advance to feedback from this outstanding group.

128x128vette5451

Showing 1 response by ghdprentice

ghdprentice
6,473 posts
 
Congratulations for getting to this point in life. Honestly, great time to splurge on something you love. I’m a bit older… but I upgraded a few years before retiring so I could really enjoy it. I did! Then I was really lucky to be able to make a couple big jumps after I retirement.



Looking at your system. The strong points are your TT, cartridge and amp.

I think, given your budget. I would blow this years budget on speakers… all of it. The $10K budget puts you into a whole new category. Look at slightly used. That will be a huge jump. I remember I went from $5K speakers to Sonus Faber Olympica 3 ($12K)… wow.

Then year two a used preamp and Phonostage ~$5K each, Audio Research, CJ… an audiophile unit. Will make a huge improvement. This could net you a preamp and phono stage of original cost of $7,500 to $10K each.

These changes would move you many steps up the ladder.

You could reverse the years. I think your amp is good.

I have been slowly upgrading my system since 1973. Things really started to get good when I purchased a VPI Aries, and various Audio Research Phono Stages and preamps. My current systems are shown under my UserID. Now retired I have a wonderful system to spend three or four hours a day. 





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