You can possibly better the sound by using an external phono Amp, like the schiit mani or even an ifi phono Amp. Your headphones are fine and have pretty good reviews. To improve those, maybe a decent headphone Amp. As others have mentioned, that cartridge, which I assume is AT, can be upgraded just by swapping in another from the same AT line. You do not mention an Amp and speakers...but you do say you have only 500 bucks. It would be hard but not impossible to assemble something of quality together at that budget. You could look at the cheaper Cambridge Audio stuff like the AXA25 model integrated , $299/Amazon, paired with maybe some wharfedale’s. The diamond 220 speakers are still available for $249/Amazon brand new, great speaker for the money. Plug a schiit mani (about $100) into one of the line inputs of the above AXA25 integrated and you are all set. If you can scrape up another $150 above your 500 buck budget ($650) you can get the 3 above components and have a nice little set up. Records of decent quality vg+ can easily be found at the thrift stores. I scored many a good record from them. I’d rather have many records to play on cheaper set up, than too few on an expensive rig. Grab a spin Clean record washing kit, a carbon fiber brush, stylus cleaning brush, and some quality replacement record sleeves and you are good to go on that front. Then enjoy the music! Vinyl can be very rewarding...
New to vinyl, where to start?
Hello all,
I was recently gifted an Audio-Technica turntable, and I would like to get started with a vinyl system. Previously, my “audiophile” set up consisted of an iFi DAC that I found on Audiogon and a Sennheiser HD569. Maybe not quite audiophile sound, but very effective for my student-sized budget.
My question is this: given a budget of $500, how can I get the best sound out of this new turntable? My initial thought was to find a used HD 650 for ~$300 and a good tube amp for ~$200. Is this a good place to start or should I consider other elements such as updating the cartridge? I’m new to the world of analog sound so I would appreciate any advice you all might have.