The two things you're concerned with, turntable and speakers, are prime candidates for tweakery. Obvious choices to start with are Synergistic Research HFT, ECT, and PHT. Everything I am about to recommend, btw, will seem like it can't possibly make that much difference. Until you try it, and even then you probably will not believe it. Synergistic is not even the best of them, but close, and we will start there because they have a 30 day guarantee. So by the time you try a few my credibility will be epic and you will have the confidence to try the other ideas. Which you should. They are fabulous and guaranteed to transform your listening experience.
HFT, ECT and PHT you can see used extensively in my system here.
https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367 Look close you will see 3 PHT on the cart and arm, plus ECT on the arm base, and motor, and amp. Zoom in, hard to see. HFT are on the speakers and walls. These things all seem like they couldn't possibly make any difference. In fact every single one of them improves imaging, dynamics, presence, and detail to a remarkable degree. What I mean is you can hear just one, and by the time you do a set you're impressed, and by the time you do several sets you're amazed.
I've compared, its just not possible to find a component upgrade that will deliver this kind of performance improvement. Better, yes. This good, no. Not without spending a whole lot more.
Now that you're sure I know what I'm talking about place a couple orders for fo.Q tape. It comes in thick and thin. I would get one of each. This special piezoelectric tape effectively kills vibration. First time I used just one little inch and heard improvement. One inch! Now there's a strip running the length of the tone arm tube. I like to keep mine out of sight as for me part of the pleasure is the look and feel. But there's no reason not to wrap the whole thing in this stuff. The more the better and the improvement is clearly audible.
Tone arm base, counterweight, plinth, motor, spindle, base, footers, you name it. Great stuff for retired as all this stuff is a bit time consuming which is just what you need. I'm enjoying it and not even retired yet!
Speakers, thick fo.Q tape is an awesome speaker gasket upgrade. I pulled the drivers and put it on the baskets, anywhere and everywhere you think might be good to kill vibration. Which on speakers and turntables is everywhere.
From here we get to the big time, the creme de la creme, cutting edge nano tech electron shear wave enhancement and unfiltering. You want to know how good that works check with another retired audiophile oregonpapa who I know will confirm just how unbelievably far you can go without having to upgrade a single component.
