I'm 70 years old and have been spinning vinyl and enjoying records for more than 50 of those years. My first sort of "hi-fi" system came back stateside with me in 1971 after my Army duty in Belgium. I no longer have any components from this system.
One thing I learned over the years about audio: "Simple is Better".
The system in my music room consists of:
Four Turntables, 2 Belt Drive, 2 Direct Drive.
Four Emotiva XPS-1 Phono Preamps
One Passive Alpine Stepped volume control, with Source control
Two Vintage Restored 6L6 Monoblock vacuum tube amps
Two Vintage Restored Frazier "Black Box" Theater speakers.
Speaker and Interconnect cables are modest upgrade components, nothing costing over $60 per cable. (No Monster Wire Here!)
Note there are NO tone shaping controls in this set up as they are just not needed. Many audio magazines over the years have recommended to keep your audio system as simple as possible for the Best Audio performance. My system does not even have a balance control, as it's not needed. I can actually control the volume of each mono amp by adjusting the on board input sensitivity pot.
Some of my local friends are also into quality audio, and have followed me in simplifying their audio component chain in their system to achieve better audio. Try replacing a Preamp with Tone controls with a passive, volume only preamp. You just may find that better audio can be found in simplifying your audio chain.
One thing I learned over the years about audio: "Simple is Better".
The system in my music room consists of:
Four Turntables, 2 Belt Drive, 2 Direct Drive.
Four Emotiva XPS-1 Phono Preamps
One Passive Alpine Stepped volume control, with Source control
Two Vintage Restored 6L6 Monoblock vacuum tube amps
Two Vintage Restored Frazier "Black Box" Theater speakers.
Speaker and Interconnect cables are modest upgrade components, nothing costing over $60 per cable. (No Monster Wire Here!)
Note there are NO tone shaping controls in this set up as they are just not needed. Many audio magazines over the years have recommended to keep your audio system as simple as possible for the Best Audio performance. My system does not even have a balance control, as it's not needed. I can actually control the volume of each mono amp by adjusting the on board input sensitivity pot.
Some of my local friends are also into quality audio, and have followed me in simplifying their audio component chain in their system to achieve better audio. Try replacing a Preamp with Tone controls with a passive, volume only preamp. You just may find that better audio can be found in simplifying your audio chain.