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If you had $12k / £10k to upgrade your analogue front-end...

Hi all,

I am upgrading my system in my listening room bit-by-bit. This room is for focused listening of music only. No movies. In the future I will be looking looking to upgrade my analogue front-end and am thinking of a budget of around $12k / £10k for a turntable, tonearm, cart and phono stage/pre-amp. I listen to all sorts of music from electronic, bass-heavy vinyl, jazz, hip-hop, rock (new and old), ambient (Cinematic Orchestra, Nils Frahm etc...) and lots of soul/funk type tracks. So quite varied.

If you had $12k/£10k to spend, what combination of turntable, tonearm, cart and phone stage/pre-amp would you go for? I'm looking for suggestions to help with my research. I'm unsure what the balance should be between them. For example, should I go for a Rega Planar 10 with Aphelion 2 cart (£6,840) and give myself just over £3k to spend on a phono stage. Or spend less on the cart (Rega Planar 10 with Apheta 3 is £4,950) and get a more expensive phono stage.

Turntable brands I've been thinking of are Rega, Clearaudio, Technics, VPI, AVID, Thorens, Michell Engineering, VPI, SME etc... but don't really know where to start.

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

cainullah
ghdprentice
6,477 posts
 

There are so many choices. I think my initial comment is that I would recommend close to a 50 - 50 split between phono stage and TT / cartridge. Personally I would find the highest level used Audio Research or CJ and spend 40% of my budget on that. Outstanding tubed phonostages have been available for a while.

 

Then for TT… my way of looking at it is sprung or massive. They tend to have a different sound, lively vs solid (I just don’t have a better generalization, and it is a generality) respectively.
 

Then 

grislybutter
2,374 posts
 

that's a lot of money, good start. AVID or Rega for sure for both TT and amp within the same brand as they can fine tune them to death 

what speakers do you have?

cainullah OP
29 posts
 

Thanks Grislybutter. I have FyneAudio F501SP floorstanders. I will also have an Arendal 1961 1S subwoofer. I currently have a Moon Ace All-in-one but will be upgrading that with a Moon 303a Power Amp and Moon 390. I don't know much about AVID. But I thought a Rega Planar 10 + Apheta cart + Rega Aura phono stage could be a good combo.

And thanks Ghdpretence. I'll look at Audio Research and CJ too. 

vonhelmholtz
911 posts
 

I did exactly this in 2022. I went with a Technics 1200G/Hana ML and Sutherland 20/20 with LPS. The turntable cartridge were good, but I can’t say the same for the Sutherland in my system. After 40-50 hours of use I returned the Sutherland and upgraded my analog. The turntable/arm/cartridge retail for $5200 or so. My upgraded turntable/arm/cartridge retail around 20K. The phono preamp $16K, but purchased phono stage used for much less. First, the phono stage selection was critical. My Audionet is very musical with lots of detail. It sounds like a fast balanced tube phono stage. I’m less certain that the table arm were an upgrade, but the new table/arm was more than twice the cost of the Technics. The Hana ML is quite musical and the upgraded cartridge was a bit less than your budget. For this difference in price the MSL cartridge is very fast and detailed compared to the Hana, but the Hana is a much better value. So, I believe that the Sutherland was what I disliked about my initial setup, but I will be selling or trading the Technics/Hana.  Some great suggestions above from members with much more experience than myself.

cainullah OP
29 posts
 

Vonhelmholtz. Do you have a Pam G2? That blows my budget. 

Others have recommended the Technics 1200G but I'd anticipated having a belt drive. But open to all options.

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