Longtime lurker, first-time poster: My wife and I got into vinyl about five years ago and have been steadily collecting records ever since. We love spinning records, and listen to a lot of jazz, pop, and classical music. We started modestly with an AT LP120, and are lucky to have a friend who just happened to have a pair of Totem Rainmakers sitting in his garage collecting dust, which he gave to us, along with a TSC sub and all cables. We have decided it is time to invest in our own system.
I've done a lot of research and read numerous threads on this topic here and elsewhere, and we've narrowed our choices down to two tables: the Rega P6 (in the $1500 price range) or the Feickert Volare (in the $3500 bracket). Either table I'll be getting the Hana ML. For phonostage, we've narrowed down to the MoFi UltraPhono or the Sutherland KC Vibe mk ii. I'm hoping I can solicit opinions here on these choices and, in particular, whether the Feickert is going to make a difference for our use case. Finally, I recognize that the speakers might be outclassed by these upgrades, but we are separately planning to move in the next year and I want to wait and see where our new listening room is going to be before investing in new speakers.
@co93 - Thanks for the quick response! Yes, that makes a lot of sense. I'm 95% sure I'm getting the Rega P6 at this point. A lot of really great recommendations in this thread but I ultimately think the Rega is going to be best for my use case. The other 5% of me is thinking about a step up to a P8, but I will not likely do that for several reasons, including that I have a toddler and am pretty sure I need a dust cover that fully closes for the safety of the table.
I'm still not quite sure what to do on phonostage. The KC Vibe mk ii is still the top contender, as I've not seen a single bad comment about Sutherland from anyone, and in the $1000 category I'm not sure whether it is worth overthinking this. But I am intrigued by a tube phono pre since it seems like almost all of you prefer that route. Maybe that will be for another day though.
there are a few simple rules. On is if you have little kids, stay away from tubes. Just say no. On the phono preamp, there are plenty of good choices. People on the site will swear by one brand over another. But my experience is at the same price point, the differences aren’t as big as the differences in cartridges.
You may want to look at the Clearaudio Concept with the concept mc cartridge. Got back into records a year ago and this was my plunge. Started out with Clearaudio phono preamp. Sounded Great. Since then have moved over to Parasound Jc3jr. Nice upgrade. My final step will be to move into the PS audio phono preamp. IMO MC is the way to go then your phono stage. Take it slow don't go crazy
Bruin. I’m actually a clear audio guy. Biggest problem is no integrated dust cover. And the after market isn’t cheap, and is something you have to figure out where to put it when you’re using the table. Once again, people need to understand your living situation.
Thanks again to everyone for their help and feedback in this thread. I ordered the Rega P6, Sutherland KC Vibe mkii, and the Hana SL cartridge. Also spring for a Tru-lift. I'm really excited for this new setup and, more importantly, to listen to all the great records I've been buying the last month in anticipation of this purchase! As with many others on this forum, I also want to give a big thanks to Kat at Upscale for patiently working with me through this process.
Quick follow up: Everything has arrived and I dropped the needle today. For my first test run, I played the MoFi pressing of Dire Straits, Love Over Gold. Somewhat hilariously, I played it at 33 RPM because I didn't realize how the NEO PSU worked lol. So that was fun. Quick reset, get it going at 45 RPM, and--oh my god. Telegraph Road, dead quiet noise floor, incredible separation, and what I would describe as open space, as if the sound finally had room to breath. I've certainly never heard my Totems sing like that before.
Now, as I mentioned before, my wife and I listen a lot together, but I listened to Dire Straits on my own and did not tell her my impressions. Instead, when I told her it was all ready, I had her pick an album, and she picked the Analogue Productions pressing of The Four Seasons. I drop the needle, and about 5 seconds in her jaw hits the floor. In the end, we both got to experience a tremendous audible improvement in the music.
I also mentioned above that I was going to wait until we get a new house before getting new speakers. I'm still going to wait, but maybe a Rel T7i is in my future to replace my TSC sub....
I would beware of being led down the path of being scammed in this market / industry. See my other topic I just updated about tonearm ripoffs. You’ll notice that almost all of the responses in that thread REFUSE to answer the question if tonearms result in an upgrade and instead mostly what I got were people repeating useless truisms about matching and what they do for "you". There were a handful of responders which did clearly state that upgrades to their tonearms resulting in significant sonic upgrades, but they never detail these sound quality improvements.
So, I’m just saying: be prepared for the possibility that turntables and their components are largely a SCAM, and that if everything is matching right, cart is a competent MC with the right material, etc, then anything you pay above the minimum required for this baseline is simply a RIPOFF, a racket for small manufacturers with workshops to make wild margins off of building boutique parts with virtually no sonic benefit over simply competent parts.
@madavid0 - I'm not really sure what the point of telling me turntables are a scam when I just posted about upgrading from an Audio Technica to a Rega P6 and Sutherland KC Vibe mkii and noticed a substantial difference in the sound. I think most people are aware of the law of diminishing returns, but that is not my situation. Is your comment in reference to something specific?
@bruinucafan Can you describe in detail the upgrade to the sound? Did you compare them back to back to validate it? Which cart are you using and did you upgrade that too?
I’m not really sure what the point of telling me turntables are a scam when I just posted about upgrading from an Audio Technica to a Rega P6 and Sutherland KC Vibe mkii and noticed a substantial difference in the sound. I think most people are aware of the law of diminishing returns, but that is not my situation. Is your comment in reference to something specific?
op
i wouldn’t get sucked into troll warfare... just look up this person’s prior posts - all heat and anger, rarely any useful light shed
just enjoy your new rig and the music it plays, ignore the noise
I just read some OP's posts in the first page, I should have done that first. Sprout using it's phono stage? Right. Sorry I wouldn't have asked for detailed listening impressions from such a setup.
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