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Prices of CD vs. record players

People seem to agree that the quality of the music obtained from vinyls is far superior to the level that is reached with (red-book) CDs. Of course this depends also on the player, and for instance a very expensive CD player will give better results than a very cheap turntable. I wanted to know at which budget level record players are better sources than cd players.

I have a CD player NAD C541i (its value is about 350 USD), that I plan to upgrade with an external DAC that costs about 1000 USD (e.g., Benchmark DAC1 - I have not decided yet). How much should I invest in turntable + tonearm + cartridge + phone stage to have a sound that definitely overcomes the quality of what I could obtain from my NAD CD player + external DAC?
sbabu
arafel
32 posts
 
Having heard the Benchmark DAC, I would say that 1500 for a VPI Scout table would beat it. For a cart, something like a Dynavector would work nicely, and the ASL Tube mini phono stage. Total cost $2200. However, I think even the Music Hall MMF7 could compete nicely with the CD setup you want, and that with the ASL would be about $1350.

Good luck!
seandtaylor99
1,262 posts
 
IF you don't already have a collection of LPs then in my opinion you should invest nothing. Spend the money on CDs and a better DAC.

I have a Rega P3 with a Goldring 1042 and an audiolab phono stage. Together this would cost over $1500 new, yet I would not say that it is superior to my $1000 CD player ... just different.

In short I have never convinced myself that LPs sound superior to CDs .... just different, and a well recorded CD will be far superior to an average LP (and vice-versa).
sbabu OP
2 posts
 
Arafel and Seandtaylor99: thanks you for your comments. Indeed, I should have specified that I have a collection equally distributed of about 500 CDs and 500 LPs. So far I have been listening to my LPs with an old DUAL 606 + some cheap Ortofon cart.
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