I was in the same position as you. I had a good turntable but constantly had to fiddle with it. It took all the enjoyment of listening to vinyl away. I traded my turntable in on a new Technics SL1200G DD turntable @4K. This is the least fiddly turntable I have ever owned. Its like the Showtime oven that the late Ron Popeil was hawking. "Set it and forget it". I now play a lot more vinyl, and it plays very mice with my McIntosh C2500 tube pre and MC302 amp.
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!
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