Lots of good feedback and thoughts here. As oldaudiophile, mentioned, I am indeed just getting into it and have a whole lot to learn. I’ve definitely thought about what vonhelmhotltz said with foregoing this endeavor and just making my digital as good as it can be. What attracts me to vinyl is the process, the sound which I’ve really come to appreciate and to some extent I think I will really enjoy looking for and finding albums.
as far as introducing other brands, I definitely will look into that, but also have a dealer that I trust and who has treated me right, including service that has gone above and beyond anything I’ve experienced elsewhere. That's worth a lot and potentially limits my choices to stay with someone I trust. Brinkmann is also intriguing but above my price point currently.
One completely different option that we talked about was starting with a lesser, but good table, specifically the Dr. Feickert Volare (shoutout to edgyhassle) and get a few years under my belt, especially since I don’t have a separate pre now. Then I could learn a lot more and buy an endgame table once I’ve figured that out and know that I’m committed to vinyl. That would also give me a longer upgrade path, but potentially more expensive than just buying one of the two tables I mentioned.
I’ve read a bit about the VPI’s and it seems they are quite polarizing. I do love the look and sound when I’ve heard them (at multiple dealers and at shows, including southwest audiofest recently). I also really like the brinkmann taurus and the pure fidelity harmony sounded great as well. In almost all of those cases, the phono stages were significantly better than what I have now.
Coming back to two that I’m looking at here, the avenger plus (seems similar to what you pointed me to exigem2, with the benefit of the rim drive system) has some nice features including a rim drive system, a good Tonearm (potentially debatable) and seems like it could have a lot of potential for future upgrades. The Harmony seems like it is great as well and potentially easier to use and learn on. I’m not as sure about the long term upgrade path, but I’m sure there is also potential there. The third option then could be something like the volare and so what I mentioned above and buy a better table in a few years.
Thanks for all the feedback so far! And excuse the typos, I’m in the passenger seat while my son is practicing his driving for the third time, yikes!
