Best way to spend my income tax refund

I think the amp upgrade may be the way to go. My reasoning is that a TT is quite the continuous investment. TTs are really picky about setup and cleaning, and buying records is an entire hobby itself. You may really enjoy it, but going analog is not the soft option your enquiry implies it is. Think about it and have fun. (I just filed and am "investing" my refund in art :)

Talk to Steve McCormack about what the uprgade will mean to you, and what it will do to your system. He's incredibly cool, and it seems to me that he takes an earnest, honest approach when answering questions about his upgrades. I've heard his upgrades, to his already really good-sounding equipment, are fantastic--bringing more liquidity, musicality, and effortlessness to the sound of his equipment.

With analog, I've found that it brings an intimacy to your listening room that isn't always available on CD. When I bought my turntable, I had only 8 albums, but felt that the intimacy was worth the upgrade, despite that I wanted other upgrades in my system. I've since bought many, many more albums! :-)

I would say that you perhaps jump into vinyl, and save to do the upgrade later. I say this because if you currently feel that you want something new from your system, you can go all for getting an alternative approach to music playback. If you indeed enjoy the sound of LP-playback in your room, you can then think about what other components will do to the system as a whole.

Best of luck!

I shouldn't comment on how you save your money, you sound like you have given it some thought. Having said that while vinyl is very rewarding it has a fair number of startups and you don't have any software, so factor that in when you are making the decision. I got back into it a few years ago and love it but I had several hundred perfect lps. I used the phono stage that I had in my nuvista which I think is similar to yours and it is very servicable. Given the quality of your equipment I wonder that the biggest bang wouldn't be from 1 dedicated power if you don't have, 2 room acoustics, 3 speaker upgrade - you might move up the von s line. good luck

I guess what this boils down to is given my current system will the addition of a turntable or amp upgrade provide the biggest sonic improvement?

I'm open to suggestions on the vinyl side of things. I admit I know nothing about turntable maintenance and set up. Perhaps a better starting point would be a step lower on the vinyl food chain, maybe a Rega P3 is a better entry point for me? Is that easier to set up and maintain without a significant drop in performance?