Love your current setup. As a former electronics tech and online dj music nut, I highly recommend that no matter what Turntable you get, spend more on the cartridge and needle!! And I Say this as a electronics tech from aviation radios and reproduction of sound. The needle is the key Brands i liked after my 3 months obsessive looking, I came down to three brands. Grado Labs, Ortofon, and Sumiko each have the highest cartridges specs in their lines, and top end is amazing. Now i have a relatively cheap TT but i put a cartridge Grado Prestige 3 gold on it and wow!! I wish i had the budget to go higher in any lines i mentioned. Having been and online dj knowing digital and then going back to my youngers years listening to Errol Garner, Boots Randolph, The 1812 overture, Beethoven's 5, To modern music from 60 to current.,. yep it all about the cartridge needle!!
Upgrade My Turntable - How Much Do I Need to Spend?
I have recently fallen in love with listening to vinyl on my turntable. In recent years, I have spent most of my listening time with digital music stored on my server (flac files recorded from CD's), but recently I discovered the beauty of placing an album on the turntable and listening to the entire album. It's been a wonderful find for me.
My 2-channel room features:
- McIntosh C260 Tube Preamp
- McIntosh MC452 Solid State Amp
- Martin Logan Montis speakers
- Various upgraded cables and wires
- Acoustically treated listening room
- Pro-Ject Debut Carbon DC turntable
- Ortofon Blue Cartridge
My question is: how big of a step up do I need to make with my turntable to take full advantage of the other components in my system? I do not intend to do further upgrades with my speakers or amp system, but I would like to step up my game from the introductory level turntable that I bought years ago.
I've been doing lots of reading and studying, but I would love to hear advice from some of the analog experts on this forum. (Please don't flame my current system - there are reasons I love my McIntosh and those components are not going anywhere!) Should I make a move to a $4000 turntable? Or???? I would love to find a lightly used Rega RP10, and call my search over - but what do others think?
One thing that I believe I value is a simple setup. I have read horror stories about how much time and frustration can go into getting a turntable setup and then constantly having to tinker for optimal performance. I don't see myself enjoying that part of the process.
Thanks!