What's the limit for cart upgrade/VPI Scout?

Hello, Arnold. I'm not a very good person to ask much of in the way of vinyl, as I just got back into this side of the playback chain after leaving it behind 18 years ago, in the hopes that digital had all the answers. It turns out that analogue is much better now than I remember it. I think the Dorian works well in the Scout, in spite of it being lower in mass than is strictly recommended by VPI. It is fast, highly detailed, and very dynamic. It takes some time , however, to get it dialed in for VTA and azimuth. After you get it, though, you'll see that your efforts are very much worth the effort. I don't know if you read my reply to Doug Deacon's post, but I recently put my table on a Brightstar Audio BigRock platform, put spring suspension under that. It made such a difference in how good this set-up sounds that it prompted my question about how good a cartridge you could use before you run out of table. I hope this helps, I need much more advice than I can give, but good luck, and enjoy. Dan

Dan: Like Doug, I would also suggest putting your hard-earned money elsewhere than the cartridge.

At the recent High-End show in Munich, one of the very best-sounding analog systems was in the Taurus room, with Magnepan speakers, Rowland electronics, Raven One table, Schroeder Reference SQ arm, and Dorian cartridge. Of course, it was a major help that the cartridge and arm were set up by Frank Schroeder; who can extract better sound from an analog setup than practically anyone else I know.

In your case, I'd suggest first putting in more work on the turntable, tonearm and phono stage, and if someone local has a widespread reputation as being an outstanding analog setup technician, see if you can hire him to work over and refine your setup.

My experience is that in many cases, time and effort spent on setting up the analog system optimally (or hiring someone who can do a really good job) is worth fully as much as a component upgrade(s).

regards and hth, jonathan carr

I will agree with all of the above for sure. But, I will also say this...If you look one step up from the Dorian at the Argo i, you will upgrade your rig considerably without doing anything else, and for not a huge investment more. The Argo i is simlpy much better than the Dorian IMO.

Kudo's for a most upfront response from Jcarr (not that I'm surprised).

Some might have remained silent. Others might have made some effort toward encouraging a sale of their top model. Instead he voluntarily stepped in to say, in effect, "Not yet, you'll get more from improving your rig and setup first."

Ethical post of the month nomination.

Arnold: You may want to consider the Dynavector 20XM. In my discussions with the folks at VPI this is their "no brainer" for the Scout. I had a 20XH for a while and then switched to the medium output version and heard greater speed and detail. Not a huge difference but worthwhile in my estimation.