Cost Incurred to Achieve a Vinyl LP Replay

@pindac I may be getting dense in my dotage, but the ChatGPT did make sense of your question! If it was correct about your thesis, I concur with it. It is certainly possible to attain the desired degree of vinyl playback without spending ludicrous amounts of money, but in the end it comes down to aligning your expectations with your budget. I have two relatively cheap SME tables (one bought used), four excellent SME tonearms (two bought used), two cheaper Rega tonearms, a reasonable SUT, and relatively cheap Quad tube electronics. My weakness is in liking variety in cartridges, and using tonearm pods I can run six. I doubt I have the best ears around (in fact I only have one and it runs at 50%) so I'm not troubled by issues of soundstage and image, but I do like the quality of the sound to be pleasing to me.

The vinyl only parts of my setup (TTs, TAs, pods, cartridges, SUT phono stage, record cleaning machines) probably add up to about $54kCDN, and I don't feel any need to go further. In fact, all the changes made in the last ten years have been on the vinyl side; once I'm happy I stick with gear in the long term. My phono stage, pre-amp, power amps and speakers are all 16 years old.

And may I wish you, and all here, a merry Christmas also.

Digital library? I tried ripping all my CDs and had a disk failure in a hardware RAID array that required the exact same model of disk to replace a failed drive. They had been discontinued, so months of work for nothing. I still play CDs and SACDs.

Cheap SME tables? Mine are humble Model 10s, since discontinued. The Model 15 would be closest now (or you could use a Model 12 and ignore the built-in phono stage, as, of course, you should). I'd love to hear the more expensive models, but I did say something about aligning expectations to one's budget!

And I doubt pindac will be charitable if we start to discuss Churchill. My first 27 years were in the UK, before I came to Canada. I am a Churchillian, both by nature and conviction. Enjoy your Christmas!

@cleeds The first iteration of the OWC Mercury Pro, which was where the exact same make and model of disk limitation arose. OWC could not sell me a replacement disk of the same model. Newer versions allow the disks to be mounted as a JBOD, and I prefer that, with one disk copying to the other three every day. They now use SoftRAID rather than built-in hardware.

@pindac If I weren't such a slut for cartridges and had only the one I thought "best" no doubt I would also want the best tonearm and table, which is how those who can afford it get into the super-tables; always chasing "the best.". A variety of cartridges is like insurance against going along that path.

@pindac 

@dogberry I have shared with you in the past on occasions about your methods used for mounting Tonearms.

Indeed you have. I thought you might be amused to see the latest twist among my pods: using two per tonearm. The latest pair have built in micrometer adjustment of VTA, but seemed to tip rather easily. So I placed a pod under the distal end, so that it rested upon it. More mass, more stability, and sounds very good!

Next step, as there always is a next step, is to ask Lee at Acoustand to make me custom tonearm panels with a mounting hole at both ends. That way the tonearm panel can be firmly attached (ie mechanically coupled) at both ends to a 10lb weight sitting on spikes - 20lb on spikes will damp every vibration arriving at the tonearm mount, I think.

Ah, yes, but the wooden surface is the top of a 400lb oak chest from the early 1700s. I cannot get rid of it, nor move it elsewhere, so I must make the best of it.

And maybe, just maybe, oak that is nearly 400 years old is just about as dense or sonically equivalent to panzerholz? Bet no one has tested that!

Either way, Lee has agreed to make me tonearm panels that will attach to a 10lb pod at both ends.

If you're happy, pindac, then we (most of us anyway) are happy. I'm someone who thinks dictionaries should be prescriptive, grammar and punctuation matter, and spelling isn't an art form. However, I'm also comfortable making no end of allowances for the neurodivergent and for ESL speakers. You should hear my French!

Going off-topic a little, I was quite serious, however, when I said that ChatGPT made good sense to me of your OP. Which is interesting to me as a member of a family of ASD-types. You'll be amused to hear that the NYT is suing OpenAI for training ChatGPT on its articles without permission. It seems I can buy a newspaper, read it, and pass it on to someone else to read, all perfectly legally. But I cannot pass it on to an AI to read....