Weakest Link? Your honest opinions.

Rlwainwright - I believe the weakest links are the Kefs and the Marantz. But I started the thread to see what other people thought.

Sbrown - I listen primarily to rock, metal, country, bluegrass, and jazz. I love acoustic music, but I also get off to loud distorted guitars. But I'd say 9 times out of 10, I'm listening to something guitar driven.

Tbromgard - I plan on upgrading the JD9 soon. Any tubes you can recommend?

Sbrownnw - I will be looking into these Mogami cables for sure. Cables of all kinds are something I haven't put much thought into.

Elizabeth - I'll look into the Pangea cords, AudioAdvisor does seem to have a sale on them.

Thank you all for your thoughts and suggestions, and for keeping the bully at bay. It's funny Sliktinydic3000 talks about getting a better job, since that's what I just did.

Fresh out of college, I purchased my first rig (the Marantz, Kefs, and a Marantz CD player)through craigslist for 300 bucks.

Now that I have a better job, I'm making upgrades, hence the purchase of the Classic 1 and soon enough, the Zephyr. I bought the Jolida for $350 through Craigslist about 3 months ago.

As for speaker placement and cartridge set up, I feel I have researched both very thoroughly and have them close to as good as they're going to sound in the room. I've bought DVDs, watched youtube videos, read countless articles, and experimented a bunch on both procedures. I'm sure a professional could make it sound better, but I feel like I've done a pretty good job.

So the next step for me is to upgrade.

After reading through your suggestions, I have a few questions:

Re: the Hubbell HI8300 outlet -- How hard is it to replace an outlet? Also, because I live in an old apartment, I need to wire my rig through an extension cord. I realize this isn't ideal, but I really have no choice in the matter. This is the only possible way to set up the living room. Do you guys think this degrades the sound? Are there any audiophile extension chords you'd recommend?

Re: Power conditioner. Any of those you can recommend?

Warrenh- What is SET?
Looking at the Focal Electra's right now. Musicdirect has them 40% off. I'm not going to be able to afford them for a few months, by then the sale will probably be over.

Sbrownnw- Is it easy enough to test to see if I have a 20amp line right now? I'd like to do that first before asking my landlord.

Also, what's with these Anti-cables on Audiogon, does anyone have experience with them?

Here's some Kef Q55 specs from Audioreview: 2&1/2 way design, 150W, 6ohm, 91dB/W/m, floorstanding

Haven't upgraded my outlet yet, but I did purchase the following:

Pangea AC14SE - for my turntable
Pangea AC14 - for my preamp
Audioquest Black Mamba II - used between turntable and preamp
Audioquest Sidewinder - between preamp and integrated amp.
VPI/Soundsmith Zephyr Cartridge

The Zephyr, of course, made the most noticeable change. The old Nagaoka was a great sounding cartridge for the price, and on my P1, but this is clearly a huge step up. I find it hard to stop listening to records now.

I still need to A/B the cable upgrades. An improvement wasn't immediately noticeable, but if I changed back to my monster or bjc, it would probably be very apparent. I'll give it a shot tonight and report back.

Good to hear you enjoyed the Kefs.

Not sure what tubes are in the Jolida now, but they're definitely stock. I'm going to look into replacement tubes and opamps for it.

On the integrated end, I've been eyeing tube amps primarily. Icon Audios seem nice.