Moving from CD to analog

Matthewhoult...
"Zd542
Thank you for your reply. I have taken your advise and borrowed a Rega Planner turntable with original arm and a Ortofon cartridge I will give this some listening and see how I get on."

That's a very wise decision to take it slow. Here's a thought nobody has mentioned; with your size budget, if you spend $5 to $10K on hardware, think of all the vinyl you'll be able to buy with the remaining funds.

I'm glad you found my post helpful. When I just read through it again, it sounded a little negative. Didn't mean for it to come out that way. Just to clarify a bit, compare your situation to someone who says they want to get into high end audio and they have 50k to spend. You can send them out and get them something like a Krell/Wilson combo that is popular among audiophiles. It may turn out that they end up not liking that setup and would much prefer SE triodes and super efficient speakers.

That's the point I was trying to make. You could spend a lot of money and just get the wrong equipment for your taste. I wouldn't worry too much about it, though. There's an old saying: Its pretty hard to screw up vinyl.

If you could not deal with the frustrations of a music server, then you should seriously reconsider whether you want to go vinyl. It is not very user friendly and requires a great deal of attention to optimize.

Matthew - a BMW dealer wants to sell you a BMW, a Rolex dealer wants to sell you a Rolex. That doesn't mean they're not good products. You can go it on your own if you like, but a dealer can make it easier. Your choice. There are a lot of anti-dealer people here and maybe they had bad experiences. I've had them myself with some dealers, but I wouldn't apply that to everyone. If you post the area where you live, I'm sure people can turn you on to some reputable and knowledgeable people.

No matter with how much you may come to enjoy and love vinyl playback there is no reason to get rid of your CD's. I prefer vinyl and play vinyl over 80% of the time with tapes and CD's filing out the other 20%. I will keep my CD library and enjoy it for what it brings. Your set up should allow you to run a digital and analogue front end.

Have fun on your turntable and analogue gear journey.It generally is the most interesting and fun part of this hobby.