2. amps-preamps
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Finally stepping into the hobby after 30 years of watching from the sidelines

Ok, so I hope you are all ok with a longwinded post from a first time user of the forum.  I have been obsessed with vinyl and tubes since my dad played records for me as a 5 year old.  My wife and I are finally in a place that we can take the leap into the scene.  We want to grow our system over time and may even create 2-3 systems along the way as we have a bed and breakfast where we want to make analog part of the theme. 

We have made up our mind that our first speakers will be Vandersteen 2CE sigs.  That is about as far as we have gotten.  We definitely want to power them with tubes and have very little idea of where to start.  Obviously the mainstream option would be a Mcintosh mc275 and our local HiFi salesman would LOVE to sell us a pair of those.  However, we know that there are several cheeper/better options out there and would love some input from the board.  We'd like to keep the first amp under $3,000, but we aren't locked into that.  Keep in mind that we are ok starting with a single amp and then adding a second one along the way to mono them.  Also, we would love some help with a table/arm/cartridge!  One with an integrated phono stage is fine to start with and we would again be open to upgrading and adding a stand alone phono stage later on.  

We will be doing some electrical work soon to run a 40 amp fuse to the BnBs espresso machine and would be open to setting up a dedicated line for our main system at that time so that we can have clean power.  Has any one had any experience with this?  Any ideas or recommendations that you may have would be a big help here! 

Thank you all in advance, and we are really excited to finally be part of the scene! 
128x128cottguy
cottguy's avatar
cottguy OP
56 posts
 
@terry9 We are extremely fortunate that our listening area will be directly above our garage which houses our breaker box.  So running a dedicated power line will be extremely easy as will housing power dedicated equipment.  A record cleaner will be purchased the day I buy my table.  I was unfortunate enough to audition some equipment at a store that hadn't cleaned their vinyl and I was appalled at how bad it sounded.  

@inna I know that cables are a hotly contested subject.  That's part of the reason I haven't brought them up yet.  Also because I'm waiting to pick out my gear before I begin to dive into that topic.  We'll revisit that when the time comes :)
inna
7,355 posts
 
 Terry9,
Hearing is believing, but if you never try you will never know. Did you actually try really great cables?
By the way, Cottguy, there is Nottingham Interspace turntable with Interspace arm, I presume, for sale here. Price is high and should be taken down by about 20%/25%. Put Goldring 1042 MM cartridge on it, and it will make a great audiophile entry level analog front end. I have Spacedeck, it is next step in line and most popular Nottingham.
inna
7,355 posts
 
If you want to consider new Nottingham, Larry from Hollywood Sound in Florida sells them. I think, it is $1500 new. If you decide to talk to Larry, take note that he likes Moving Coil cartridges and will try to convince you too to at least put that Dynavector in the arm.
inna
7,355 posts
 
The additional advantage of Nottingham arm is that wiring goes straight from the cartridge to the phono stage, so you wouldn't need interconnect. And Nottingham wiring is excellent.
terry9
2,354 posts
 
Hello Inna. Yes, I did try theoretically optimal cabling in two controlled experiments, one for interconnect and one for speakers. By 'theoretically optimal' I mean derived from the solutions to Maxwells' Equations, with special care taken of impedances and dielectric absorption.

To my ears, differences were marginal, given a certain minimum level of quality - much more important was the ability of suboptimal cables to reduce high frequencies, leading to the taming of various types of distortion, such as that caused by incautious use of electrolytic caps in the signal path. See my remarks on the components which are connected by interconnect.

In my system, to my ears, a first rate microphone cable with ETI connectors is close to as good as it gets. For $50 each. Goertz speaker cable is as good as it gets, also in my opinion. For a few tens of bucks a foot. For the cost of 'serious' cabling, and a marginal improvement at best, I can make a serious improvement in several other areas: upgrade caps, upgrade resistors, redesign the phono stage, etc.

As for NAS turntables, we are in complete agreement - they are very good for the money.
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