steventoney
Congrats on retirement. We have some similarities. I just retired a month ago and I used to live in Spokane for 22 years. IMO, buy a system before moving to Spokane unless you buy online or you want to make a trip to Portland or Seattle to look for gear. Spokane doesn't have any decent stereo shops compared to the bigger cities!
If you are looking at a VPI, the Prime with the 3D arm is a very good starting point. I have the VPI 10" 3d arm in my TT setup. If you are looking at cartridges, check out Soundsmith, they have a very good synergy with VPI gear.
If your mind is made up on the Klipsh, check out the Rogue Cronus Magnum II tube integrated amp with the KT120 tubes. Highly rated, good power, american made, great support, and it has a built in mm phono preamp. I used to have 1 and it drove much more inefficient speakers than the Klipsh. If you want in the future to upgrade the phono preamp. you can but you might not need to. If you want solid state, check out Hegel. You can probably get the H100 or H200 integrated amp but you will need to get an external phono preamp.
I would use the SONOS system for background music only. I would also skip buying a CD player and go with a music server/DAC with your ripped music either on a server or on a NAS. I used to own the Auralic Aries which I liked over other streamers for a lot more $$$, and I had a very nice external DAC which had an expensive SB cable to connect them together. The aries has a great interface playing ripped cd's or streaming Tidal. I upgraded the aries and external dac to the PS audio directstream with the Bridge II and couldn't be happier. At the same time, I switched to using Roon which is a fantastic interface to playing music. The PS Audio DS with bridge II supports MQA as well as using the network interface instead of a USB cable. Each year, PS Audio comes out with an upgrade to its firmware which improves SQ on a system that is very good to begin with. The PS Audio DS Jr is very good too for 1/2 the cost.
If you don't want to get an external DAC/streamer, Hegel makes the H160 or ROST integrateds that include the digital pieces but not the phono preamp. But if your priority is vinyl, then you can get a nicer external phono preamp. My preference would be the Rogue and the DS/bridge combo.
Good luck,
Congrats on retirement. We have some similarities. I just retired a month ago and I used to live in Spokane for 22 years. IMO, buy a system before moving to Spokane unless you buy online or you want to make a trip to Portland or Seattle to look for gear. Spokane doesn't have any decent stereo shops compared to the bigger cities!
If you are looking at a VPI, the Prime with the 3D arm is a very good starting point. I have the VPI 10" 3d arm in my TT setup. If you are looking at cartridges, check out Soundsmith, they have a very good synergy with VPI gear.
If your mind is made up on the Klipsh, check out the Rogue Cronus Magnum II tube integrated amp with the KT120 tubes. Highly rated, good power, american made, great support, and it has a built in mm phono preamp. I used to have 1 and it drove much more inefficient speakers than the Klipsh. If you want in the future to upgrade the phono preamp. you can but you might not need to. If you want solid state, check out Hegel. You can probably get the H100 or H200 integrated amp but you will need to get an external phono preamp.
I would use the SONOS system for background music only. I would also skip buying a CD player and go with a music server/DAC with your ripped music either on a server or on a NAS. I used to own the Auralic Aries which I liked over other streamers for a lot more $$$, and I had a very nice external DAC which had an expensive SB cable to connect them together. The aries has a great interface playing ripped cd's or streaming Tidal. I upgraded the aries and external dac to the PS audio directstream with the Bridge II and couldn't be happier. At the same time, I switched to using Roon which is a fantastic interface to playing music. The PS Audio DS with bridge II supports MQA as well as using the network interface instead of a USB cable. Each year, PS Audio comes out with an upgrade to its firmware which improves SQ on a system that is very good to begin with. The PS Audio DS Jr is very good too for 1/2 the cost.
If you don't want to get an external DAC/streamer, Hegel makes the H160 or ROST integrateds that include the digital pieces but not the phono preamp. But if your priority is vinyl, then you can get a nicer external phono preamp. My preference would be the Rogue and the DS/bridge combo.
Good luck,