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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
dekay's avatar
dekay
5,385 posts
 

The OP is looking for more of a "jump/exciting" sound, though with a sizable budget.

My course of action would be to optimize what he is currently using (he has a nice system which could be improved towards his goal with 10%-15% investment  of the budget towards a suitable cartridge perhaps with a step up TF if he is he truly wishes to experiment with a lower output MC cartridge).

In regard to step-up TF's,  which I mentioned before, there are more than decent used Denon's in the $300 range that would work with a variety of cartridges.

 

DeKay

grislybutter
2,374 posts
 

buying a speaker or amp or DAC used seems to be pretty safe. But I would not buy a used (more than 6-8 months old) turntable or CD player.

cainullah OP
29 posts
 

@dctom Thanks for the advice. The Technics seems to be very popular. I'm going to listen to it side-by-side with the Rega Planar 10, The Linn plus others.

@dekay the mat is an interesting take I hadn't even considered. I'm also looking into the step-up TF

@plinko Great to know. Thanks. 

@mambacfa That's a bargain. I'll need to find somewhere I can get decent used gear in UK.

 

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cainullah OP
29 posts
 

Has anyone used a Moon 310LP or a Channel D Lino C 2.0?

I'm considering these along with the Rega Aura, the Nottingham Analogue Dais and the Pass Labs XP-17.

overthemoon
402 posts
 

If you are considering the 390 - it's internal phono stage is based on the Moon 810LP (there's many execution differences like dual mono and separate power sources).

I'd add the Boulder 508 phone preamp for your consideration.

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