New to vinyl - How to get the best out of old classical discs?

Hey chakster, it sounds like you are taking this spring thing a little hard. Who cares if they waste their money silly springs and such. 

Nice setup!

@vinylshadow

"Hahaha. I can’t believe I’m reading about springs again, it’s almost in every thread already. Unbelievable.

Maybe because it works? Believable.

Works for whom? For you with your turntable? What is your turntable and who designed it if it doesn’t work as is?

" Nothing will change the sound more than a good cartridge in your current set up @bluemountain."

Whatever you say professor.

If you don’t know the basics and believe in snake oil then I feel sorry for you. Cartridge is the only thing in analog chain that physically extract music from the vinyl groove (way before any other components involved), what your springs can do for the sound if your first component in analog chain is weak? Anyone with cheap awful sounding cartridge must change a cartridge first before all the minor tweaks everyone can do later when cartridge, tonearm, phono stage, speakers, amps are perfect.

If you start from the springs maybe you can explain the logic?

Better cartridge with better stylus profile will make the OP’s system much better, you can’t do that with springs. We are talking about MUSIC and VINYL here, not your measurements with oscilloscope or some others devices. 

Sounds like I should start with the cart and maybe wait a bit to buy an ‘investment’ phono stage.

Right, this one is perfect, but Americans don't know about it now, but earlier it was a Swiss made highly regarded phono stage, now it's cheaper, better, and made in Australia. One of my favorites, you can barely see it under the Gold Note PH-10 on my rack.  

Re: springs, the TT is in almost perfect shape and is obviously a masterfully engineered machine. I personally wouldn’t try change anything about how it’s put together.

Those springs are the last things to try, and only if you want to play the game Miller playing for 40 years or so.  

The bottom line is the source. Some records are just not well recorded/mastered. If you had the right disc, recording, and pressing you would not need these suggestions. 

Re: springs, the TT is in almost perfect shape and is obviously a masterfully engineered machine.

Adding springs under the table won't impact it. Try them and return them if the don't work for you. I bet you'll be real surprised.

Add the  moving iron Soundsmith  Otello for $399 with the other suggestions.

It can perform on the level of carts twice the price. Consider upping the phono stage for your long game. Better phono stage will be ready when you go to the next level table. 

Non stop madness if you choose to play with rekkids. You're NEVER done!

Sounds like I should start with the cart and maybe wait a bit to buy an ‘investment’ phono stage. 
Re: springs, the TT is in almost perfect shape and is obviously a masterfully engineered machine. I personally wouldn’t try change anything about how it’s put together.

I'll agree with Chakster, the Ortofon Red is the weak link here. I think three cartridges in your price range (new) will make a significant improvement; the AT VM760SLC, the Goldring 1042 and of course the Beethoven addition of the 2M Black.

Nobsound products seem like such low quality products from China, I always have a hard time with this advice when I see it.  Not saying springs don’t work, just not sure about this brand. 

The Ear 834 is very nice, found one for about 900 bucks used in mint shape with original tubes. You could also move up to the pro-ject tube box ds2 @ about 1000 bucks. For the cartridge, I’d try the Hana el low output moving coil. That ortofon red is not that great. Another choice would be the 2m bronze. You are able to add the 2m black stylus to it at a later date, as they share the same body. You could eventually go the SUT route, and grab the Jensen mc 2rr. It pairs nicely with the aforementioned Hana el. 

@chakster

"Hahaha. I can’t believe I’m reading about springs again, it’s almost in every thread already. Unbelievable.

Maybe because it works? Believable.

If you put pods under your table and then poo poo the performance, maybe anyone here might find weight in your criticism.

" Nothing will change the sound more than a good cartridge in your current set up @bluemountain."

Whatever you say professor.

Hahaha. I can’t believe I’m reading about springs again, it’s almost in every thread already. Unbelievable.

Nothing will change the sound more than a good cartridge in your current set up @bluemountain.

A set of $30 Nobsound springs under that table will do wonders for all your music but especially classical where ringing imparts a hardness on the strings. Your turntable is light enough to only need about 3 of the 7 springs per each pod. This will leave you with enough to make another set to use under your phono stage or amp. Either one will benefit, simply try under each to find which you like the best. $30 to improve two components makes this the bargain of the century. 

Spend the rest on as good a phono stage as you can find and afford. A good EAR will indeed be nice. Don't be afraid to spend, a good phono stage is huge. Especially since then with a good one you will be in a much better position to appreciate the benefit of a better turntable when you are ready for that later on.  

Alternatively you could do the table now and phono stage later. There really is no right or wrong. Never talk a man out of a better turntable. A lot of it has to do with what you are able to find. But seriously, no matter what: Nobsound.

I think a better cartridge and a better phono stage would be the first step.  Perhaps you could find a used phono stage in order to stay in budget.  Something like the EAR 834 would be nice.  

Genre of music is irrelevant for your cartridge, a good cartridge will play all genres of music equally.

Definitely not attached to the Ortofon (or any other part of the system). Some people seem to like Goldring and Denon carts for this type of music, though on paper they look very different.

I would never give up my digital sources, but it only takes a couple recordings to justify the expense in my mind. I play piano and an unknown (to me) Rubinstein or Horowitz recording is a treasure.

Replace your Ortofon Red - this is the weak link, get advanced stylus profile for much better frequency response and accuracy. Ortofon Black if you want to stay with same cartridge body and almost the same settings. Or completely different cartridge. 

I am actually quite pleased with what can be found on CDs of older performances, at least if you are willing to buy the CDs used.  There are not too many performances only available on the original vinyl.  I tend to do most of my classical listening via CDs because noise is particularly intrusive with classical music because of the extreme dynamic range and because I collect a lot of modern performances that were never issued on vinyl.  At least modern recordings of classical music sound good and have not bee subject to horrible mastering as is the case with popular music these days.  Also, some digital reissues of certain labels actually sound better than the original vinyl issue (such as 1970's DG).

The first thing I would look at is your choice of phono stage.  It has been quite a while since I heard the Pro-ject phono stage (so it might have been improved), but, I thought it was not very good and I actually liked their low-priced solid state model much more (and I use tubes in everything except my music server).  I