great vinyl sound cost as much as great cd sound

James, I myself have come to believe that the Cartridge itself is probably one of the most critical components of Analog playback. I suppose there's many different ways to look at this topic though.

Example, one takes a $29 Rat Shack Cartridge, and throws it on a brand new $10K TNT HRX. hee hee

I think it's an easier choice myself selecting a decent turntable-arm. Then comes the hard part, the Cartridge-Head Amp-pre-amp, and the hopeful synergy between them.

I'm sure there's countless A-Goners here that have went through literally thousands of dollars trying to achieve analoge nirvana with particular combinations.

God bless those that have the "maracas" to delve into the high end, but most of us more likely wish to bypass this expensive experimentation to find what works, and good synergystic combinations that won't make you have to re-mortgage the house for. (And that's the truly wonderful thing about this forum as a resource for info)

Years ago, I've had some fairly decent MM cartridges on my Tables, the Audio Technica AT-14S, the AT-15S, the AT-20Sla, and the Shure V-15 type III. All pretty good MM's that had good sound, and good tracking abilities, even in comparison with what's available today.

There's no doubt that every component in the chain, Turntable, Tonearm, Cartridge, Cabling, Isolation, Pre-Amp all will have an effect. And lastly, proper set up of these components will extract what they have to offer.

It all has to have a balance.

While one could throw a $200 Sumiko Blue Point on a VPI TNT with SME Arm, and also one could throw a $3,000 Lyra cartridge on a $25 garage sale Technics Table, the absurdity of mismatch is quite obvious to say the least. Mark

IMO opinion an expensive hi-end cartridge is wasted on a lesser arm/TT/phono stage combo. Given budget constraints it's probably better to put long money into a great arm/TT that will last in your system & start with a fairly basic cartridge. Since cartridges wear out anyway, one has ample opportunity to upgrade them.

Awhile back I bought a used SME IV/Oracle Dephi III and put in a Sumiko Blue Point Special. I had really good sound for $1200 total investment. I later replaced the BPS with a better Audioquest NSX7000 Fe5 cartridge, but couldn't really coax too much more from the better cartridge until moving to a better VPI TNT/Graham setup. With the VPI/Graham, I could really hear the difference in cartridges and even more so later on when upgrading to a Lyra Helikon. But still, the difference between my first and last vinyl rigs is not night-and-day like between good & great digital front ends.

Dave

Markd51 and Dgarretson, thank you for your shared experiences and thoughts on the topics.

I'm really enjoying the DL-103 right now. What are your thoughts as to an exceptional phono cable?

Thanks everyone for their input.

I am thinking of getting into vinyl because I thought it would complement my roughly 2200 cd collection.

I thought it would be fun to start collecting vinyl as I own none at this time.

I am leaning however against it for now. Mostly because of the high up front cost. I am sadly middle class and my digital rig set me back a very pretty penny so if I am looking at spending $10,000 to give my emmlabs a run for the money on the analog front that is just too much for now.

Michael

Hi Karma, I can wholeheartedly understand your viewpoints, and decisions, and I think you're 100% correct.

Sure, one could get a inexpensive rig to mess with, (Say for example a used VPI Jr, or such) but I'm strongly doubting that anything within these low price ranges will even barely touch the state of the art digital gear you are now so enjoying. (Do you sense a touch of jealousy from me? hee hee)

If you have an "Analog" buddy, maybe you can visit him/her from time to time, and get the bug out of your system? Perhaps in your personal case, you'll look back in time, and say "Gee, I'm glad I didn't buy a turntable". Mark