Turntable Cartridge upgrade question.

Not too many years past I attended a event where both enthusiasts and commercial entities are able to demonstrate their systems under one roof.

It is an interesting event as the commercial interaction is very very different to the interaction with an enthusiast showing their home system.

I specifically went to experience Vinyl Sources and was keen to pick up on new Cart's.

The MC's were the objective, after a few demo's in the commercial rooms I dropped into a few enthusiasts spaces, one such room allured me back on a few occasions during the day, no matter how I tried to undo what was happening the reality was the enthusiast Ceramic Cart' costing approx' £30, well that what I paid for my one following the show. The Cart' was the most attractive Cart' heard by myself on the day. 

I also now have a Spare Styli, these Cart's today and Styli are as rare as Rocking Horse DoDo. I will preserve this as my final Cart' to be used, even though the Spare Styli is already agreed with a rebuild service to put a Beryllium or Boron Cantilever with New Ogura Styli on it.  Vintage does do well with a little injection of the new world.

I have referred to the following on previous occasion to the Copy/Paste that follows of my most recent reference to an experience I had. 

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I once demo’d at a public attended event, where approx’ 500 paying visitors were in attendance.

A very conspicuous visitor to my demonstration space came back for numerous visits, as did quite a few other visitors.

At the end of the day the conspicuous visitor came to my room with one other person, they made it known they are owners of a Company producing TT’s with a starting price of £50K and have customers with systems costing £000 000’s.

They wanted to tell me my system had them mesmerised and was a real credit to the show, especially in how I had shown that a system can be produced on a budget that impresses in a very similar way to one of their uber expensive clients system.

I’ll take that as Win 😎

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As @lewm has said, there is misleading info, the reality is there is substantial value to be had from a TT coming in at under £10K, as both a used or new purchase. What really matters in my view, is the next step, which is, what one is willing to do with it, to take it to the optimised performance it can offer.

It is easy to get of the Bus at the 'enough is done stop', the reward of staying on the bus and pulling in at a few 'what can be done stops', well that is quite some ride, maybe one not wanted to be alighted.

@ssg308 In relation to Pass.

I encouraged a very adept EE friend to look at the Pass Korg B1.

In the end they built a basic model and the demo’ given to the local HiFi Group was quite impressive. Shortly after a 3 Box Version ( VC - Circuit - PS) was produced using Black Gate Cap’s and a improved Volume Control, this was extremely impressive but also timely.

A member of the HiFi Group had invested heavily in the Vinyl Front End and New EAR Power Amp’s.

A Pre Amp was required, in a line of Pre Amps where approx’ £15K of Pre’s were present and one was approx’ £5K in value, which the EAR Pre.

After all the toing and throwing between Amp's, the KB1 was put on in both build guises, the system owner today has the KB1 in use for a few years with today a Khozmo VC and carefully introduced Boutique Cap's, the original and few upgrades are still close to £600 as the overall build cost.

This Pre is working extremely well and is not wanted to be changed, it sits in the Company of other ancillaries costing close to £50K in total. 

Within the Local HiFi Group there are now Five versions of KB1's in use, and I am having a Balanced design produced as well.

@ssg308 There is no rush to absorb the info of interest.

Copy/paste the valuable items, put the info into a email draft with a Title to describe the stored content.

Highlight the info to show the importance to yourself.

When better understood and more is wanted to be learned, it is then easy to extract and take the discussion further.

Additionally important, there is no need to rush into any decisions that you may feel are needed to be made.

Set the Journey up to be one that has good memories.