Sell quality turntable to buy top CD player?

Dentdog, good comments. You touched on something most of us who have gone all digital think about frequently. If one were starting from scratch (no pun intended) with a 5K budget for a source, would one do better with a vinyl set up or with one of the high quality/high value digital systems, like a Modwright Oppo 105 or Modwright Sony HAPZ1?

I dearly loved vinyl. I never owned a cassette deck or reel to reel machine. The transition to digital back in 83 was driven by one consideration-- Money!

My entire rig was worth about $1200, I had a vinyl collection < 100, and I thought I could do better going with a CD system. It was probably the correct choice.

Resetting the clock to 2014, I think we are starting to understand how to do digital right. Over the last few years, the emotional element has returned to my listening in a very strong way. This is something that was largely absent in my listening during the period from 84 to 09. I've had the pleasure of using a source that doesn't scream digital, and has all the virtues of digital- S/N, dynamic range, absent vinyl noise, etc. For this reason, and because I now have a CD collection of ~ 1500, and because of the extensive availability of classical music on CD, digital remains the better choice.

As far as sound quality, I can't argue how a $5K investment in tt, arm, cartridge, and phono pre would stack up against my recently modded ModWright HAPZ1 or MW Sony 5400. Its an experimental question, which I am not really motivated to answer. It would seem the OP went through the same analysis and came to the same conclusion.

I think it is good that this thread has been largely devoid of dogmatically derived answers. Let the music answer the question.

55 LPs in Fair to Good. No wonder. They won't sound good.
You need to have a few thousands in EX to Mint and skill to keep'm same way for decades. They definitely need more love and care than CeeDees.
165 or so CDs isn't too big at all so I would certainly allocate some funds to increase this number.

Dear Brownsfan,
I beg to differ with you, strongly. Back in 1983, all digital sucked. If you know my posts at all, you know I do not usually express my opinions so strongly, but on this subject, I feel confident. I remember being at a party at the home of my closest audiophile friend. He had taken the plunge on the then latest and greatest Meridian cd player. It sounded sooo bad, so unlike real music, that I begged him to play vinyl. (He owned 6000 LPs, so why not?) I myself did not buy any cd player until the late 90s, and I still use digital for background music mostly, although the quality is immensely better now than at any time in the past. Back in 1983, you could have had a great vinyl system (phono stage, turntable, tonearm, cartridge) for under $1500, and by now you would have had an extensive LP collection. IMO, you missed the boat. I do agree that at this point in time, if one has no vinyl collection, what to do is a toss-up.

Can't wait to see what Johnny Manzell does in the NFL.

Lew, good points. Back in 83 my $1200 system included not just the source but the whole works, speakers amps and all. I had a $250 tt, a $90 cartridge, and replaced it with a $350 cd player when the tt developed a hum I couldn't fix. I didn't have $1500 for a vinyl rig. You are right that in 83 all digital sources sucked, as did most of the recordings. However, a lot of the vinyl was based on early digital recording, so it wasn't always that great either.

You could be quite right, and believe me, I have second guessed myself more than once. I came close to investing in a vinyl rig once about 10 years ago, and honestly, the main reason I didn't was because my beloved began to express an intent to dig out her ancient fuzzy warbles to play through my main rig. I went pale, then green, and decided a new vinyl rig wasn't going to happen in this lifetime. True story. Let me put it this way, I'd rather have digital + my current wife than vinyl plus my ex wife. :)

As for Johnny Football, time will tell. I loved the Browns draft, but I'm a little dubious on Manzell. It will be very interesting to see how it plays out. Hoyer is a hometown boy, and is very popular with the fans.

SunnyJim
I would say keep with the ultra conveniance of digital play back,..
This past winter I got involved helping out a disabled Canadian Vetran of the Afagan conflict. The young lad always enjoyed music not only from his own generation but his parents generation also and now an appreciation of music from his grandparents generation.

He could certainly tell the differences of playback of MP3 and decent vinyl play back of his fathers system.
The young fellow is blind including other severoir injuries which anyone could imagine the difficulties ,there are many challenges for him and his parents including finicial strains.
I wanted to help anyway I could and was given the green light to do so.

A used ModWright ultimate Sony 5400 came up for sale locally which I listened to then purchased for just under $2000.00.
During the audition the seller thought I should listen to this player sitting on Syposium roller blocks including symposiums ISO platform.
That was a remarkable leap in performance for this modified Sony and a good sales tactic at a up sell on the Symposium products.

As this player stands on its own without vibration drain I found it only tolerable ,however I was not buying it for myself,. with Syposium roller blocks I liked it very much with cd and sacd playback enough to buy a modwright Sony for myself, however vinyl rules in my home.