So, my NAS Hyperspace w. MP500 gets beaten by Iphone and TV


I have a Notthingham Hyperspace. One of the very old models without the "heavy platter" mod. I recently fitted it with a Nagaoka MP500 pick up.

I decided to run a test against my Iphone with the Youtube app installed which i casted through Chromecast to my plasma (so 2000's) TV which is connected to my preamp through a cheap 0,00001 inch interconnect. You know the red and white thingies that comes with consumer products.

Record on, drop needle and start comparison.

Oh well...

What i realised is that my 5-6.000$ turntable setup doesnt really nail the high end Iphone/Chromecast/Plasma combo to the ground in direct comparison. There isnt really much of a difference to my ears.

I spend the whole day tweaking with protractors, VTA, VTF and this and that for no apparent outcome or change in conclusion. Still no real remarkable difference.

Now, I may be deaf (dumb and blind) and in that case there isnt any reason to have anything else but a simple streaming setup.

Digital is all new to me and id like to consider my options. Id like to own my music, so I guess I will be downloading and not streaming.

Is the common setup today a harddrive connected to a media player connected to preamp or?
holberg19
You can connect hard drives or flash drives to media players, some come with internal hard drives as well,  some people use a NAS(Network Attached Storage) and stream from that. You can then attach the streamer to the preamp. If your preamp doesn't have a DAC you'll need that some streamers have one built in some don't you'll need to check that as well.
There ain't no magic in using a moving magnet cartridge! They all suffer from excessive inductance (coils) and consequently slowed down transients! 
The typical mm cartridge has a coil inductance measured in the hundreds of millihenries. Mc cartridges have 1/10 that or less! Plus much lower internal resistance. 
And phono stages (both internal and external) vary widely in sound quality due to  different equalization circuits, power supplies ...