Just retired and want to get back to vinyl listening

inna -- thanks for that -- I think I’m after a Luxman 590 -- although that is a tempting offer..............trying to understand the difference between the AX and AX mkII Luxman integrateds -- These are difficult beast to go see in shops.. The place I auditioned the Devore speakers - the owner had sold them until the distributor change.. I’ll be getting the I-AMP and speakers after the move...

len -- thanks.. I decided on a clearaudio concept wood with satisfy carbon fiver arm and the clearaudio maestro v2 MM cartridge to start -- I had read about and discussed the VPI tweaking with my friend who has a VPI Scout and with the shop I bought the TT from as they are also a VPI dealer -- they are going to take me through setup and care and feeding of the beast -- I do not think I will be an endless tweaker, but could upgrade change some things over time.

in my first round of "stereo" decades ago -- over a 16 year period -- I had Genesis (I can not remember the model - but was a big bookshelf style like an old Advent), Heresy, DCM TF500 speakers (these were ok, but I was traveling and moving so much in my early Active Duty days in the mid 80’s this is wre I give up my TT and other "stereo" things for a number of years -- Yamaha and Denon Receivers, Technics TT -- etc all

I would like to hear some of the ATM classic series speakers

oops - that would be ATC Classic series  -- lots of ATC models have built-in amps -- that is not where I'm interested in going for this setup...

Did some more listening and learning today from the other hifi audio place close to me.. nice people as well

this trip was to specifically listen to Harbeth and Audio Note Speakers..  some side listen to some shop made very large and very expensive setups, but back to things in my budget

they did not have the Harbeth 40.2s in the place - but had 30.1s and they were very good with both digital and vinyl sources through Synthesis I-amps  or some in house built amps

Audio note speaker listen was an AN-E -- This was very very good and a smaller model AudioNote

The AN-E seems much like a Devore 0/93 that I have not heard yet -- will this week or next

These speakers all were very good with tube I-AMP  - heard with Synthesis A100 and A40

I may give the node to the AN-E for just natural listening to music...

thoughts on these speakers and Synthesis AMP -- I really was not going to tubes -- but may -- it is a time to listen more -- not sure I'll be able to listen to these various speakers with a Luxman I-AMP - but wish too

another 2+ hours well spent in the education

Totally FWIW: the Audio Note speakers work very well with our amps. They seem to be a very tube-friendly speaker.

Ralph, please.. you sometimes damage your reputation without apparently knowing it.