2. analog
  3. 159066-140740

Direction on my next upgrade

I am a year into my journey down the audio rabbit hole. I am enjoying all the incremental gains and enduring the miss fires. My system is as follows:

Rogue Audio Sphinx V2
Fluance RT85 with Ortofon Blue
Epicure M150's completely rebuilt with kit from Hue at Human Speaker.

I am trying to figure out the next step on my journey. I am considering the next steps.

1- send the Rogue back to be upgraded to V3 which has a much better phono stage($500)
2- switch to a MM in the $500-$750 range
3- switch to a MC cartridge
4- add a seperate phono stage under $1500
5- add a subwoofer to the party

I want to pick the one option that will give me the most improvement for the money. 

Thank you in advance for weighing in with you knowledge and opinions.

Charles
cpdkee
totem395
390 posts
 
Guy's your wearing me down I'll say it again. 
Start with a room that has been treated acoustically otherwise 
you'll  be chasing your tail.
I assume since the OP didn't mention any that he's still 
dealing with whatever is going on there. 
Once treated as far as you care to implement, then start 
with gear changes.

Both rooms I've used for music were substantially improved
and allowed me to differentiate between how the room sounds 
versus the gear.
It took me awhile to become a room treatment prognosticator 
but I wish it had occurred much earlier in my journey.
Great gear in a so so room will still be so so unfortunately.

stringreen's avatar
stringreen
6,472 posts
 
....or .....get really good earphones and a dedicated amp.....you'll get much greater result for far less money
chakster's avatar
chakster
6,144 posts
 
Fluance RT85 with Ortofon Blue

@cpdkee

The Ortofon BLUE is the weakest part in your system.
Everything starts from the cartridge in analog setup, this cartridge is too bad, the stylus tip is elliptical, this is very close to the Red (the cheapest model).

I am going to upgrade the Rogue and enjoy for a while. Looks like speakers or a better integrated will be the future debate.

Why do you think your MM phono stage is not good ?

All you have to do is to change a cartridge, nothing else in your system.
This is where you can get the biggest upgrade for the lowest possible cost. You can’t buy a phono stage for $500-700 but you can buy superb cartridge for $500-700.

If you will start from the phono stage you will not get there, just a waste of money until you don’t have a proper cartridge with advanced stylus profile and better cantilever. Read about stylus profile here.

Speakers - yes, very important, but even with the best speakers you need a great cartridge first, because the signal path starts from the vinyl groove and only a stylus can pick up the signal right.

You can completely change the whole sound of your analog system spending $500-700 on a cartridge. There is no other component in analog chain that will give you this for the same amount.

And i want to remind you that a life span of your elliptical stylus is pretty short and soon you will have to change it anyway and the price just for the stylus will be high. You’d better invest in a cartridge with the greatest profile like Shibata, LineContact, MicroLine, Stereohedron, MicroRidge that you can use for a much longer time.

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