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recommendation for a high end analog system

I never had an analog system until last month. I bought a 1989 SOTA TT with vacuum/Sumiko MMT arm/Dennon 103R retyped with elliptical/sapphire cantilever. My phono is Kitsune MK5 WBT that is amplified by Don Sach 2 tube preamp and Pass X350.5. My speaker are Sound Lab M545 ESL. The TT has been very   well maintained despite its age. It sounded very good until I heard my friend's system which has the same TT but with Lyra Skala cartridge and first generation Triplanar arm (Spectral pre/amp). His sounded noticeably clearer and fuller. What is the best way to get a noticeable improvement in my system without breaking the bank (or before I have to squint to hear the improvement). I would love to hear some wisdom from analog-philes.
128x128chungjh
tomic601's avatar
tomic601
13,141 posts
 
Are you chasing the Quads or the Lyra / Triplaner ?

and yes, I have a Lyra, Triplaner and Quads...and a SOTA/FT3/Hana ML. I put them somewhere....

How old are the Soundlab ?


speakermaster
738 posts
 
Your friends setup is a lot more money but that is not the critical part it is tweaking your system to work with each other better try a solid state pre for your pass amp even a good used one will blow away a tube pre amp. The impedance mismatch between tube and transistor gear can cause real problems.
chungjh's avatar
chungjh OP
265 posts
 
Sound lab speakers are FANTASTIC, so I don't think my weakness is the downstream components. Everyone is giving great advices. Ideally I would upgrade both the cartridge and the tonearm. But changing the tone arm on a SOTA TT is a lot more hassle, with no SOTA dealers around me. So, the cartridge upgrade is probably easiest to pull off not to mention the very high price of a top notch tone arm like Triplanar.
chungjh's avatar
chungjh OP
265 posts
 
One option is to buy another system (with a better arm on it) and sell my current system. What do you think? I am thinking that a VPI TT with VPI JMW 3D arms may be a substantial improvement over my Sumiko. Of course, VPI TT don't have the vacuum, but I don't know how much real benefit I am getting with the SOTA vacuum.
bkeske's avatar
bkeske
5,597 posts
 
@chungjh

I wouldn’t be on scared to change your arm. The biggest thing is getting the pivot to spindle correct with your existing arm board, or get another from SOTA as/if necessary. 

Then, balancing the new arm with the suspended sub-assembly using the correct amount of lead shot weight.

lol, I know that sounds like a lot, but really, it isn’t so hard, and you will quickly understand how the SOTA works by doing this yourself. That is how I learned, by simply doing it. If you need instruction on this set-up, they can probably be found on-line, or, again, I’m sure SOTA would be willing to email you a copy.
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