Time to upgrade my turntable?

You have a pretty good turntable considering the rest of your system.


My rule of thumb is always upgrade 2x or 3x the cost to get a significant improvement. Particularly the lower the initial cost. I would save up to make a bigger jump. This should put your TT in a level above the reat if your equipment. It will give you a noticeable improvement. Then save up to get a better preamp or speakers… this way you can raise the performance stepwise getting an incremental improvement each component, and long term upgrade the whole system to a new level.


This is the way most of us with really good systems got there. Sideways moves are disappointing and demotivating.

You will need to spend more than $1000 to get a significant improvement, more like $5000 for turntable, tonearm and cartridge. If you really want to spend your money just go for a new cartridge like a LVB 2M Black or an AT VM760SLH. 

What would you suggest? I might prefer to stay within the Pro-ject line as I could reuse the acrylic platter (if one is not provided with the recommended turntable).

No offense, but not the greatest reasoning. You've already got some good advice, in terms of baby steps are not the way to go. Your goal should be to save up for one that will be not a little but a whole lot better, and last you for years.    

Personally, I think the best approach from here on out is to consider table and arm separately. For several reasons. It is usually hard to save up. For whatever amount you can manage, it will get you a lot more quality spent on just the arm, or just the table, than a package.   

Also those who make arms to be sold separately, they really have to make a good arm because people are going to compare. That being the whole point. Whereas those like VPI making packages, pretty much nobody ever takes one of those arms off and that is how they get away with BS like their twisted wire side bias. Not to pick on VPI. Same goes for everyone else selling packages. I just like slamming the dumbest side bias in the business.  

Finally, buying them separately forces you to learn a whole lot more about the value of each part, how it works, and how it sounds. Vinyl isn't like digital. You don't just push a button. The sound quality you get is as much to do with your skill level as anything else. Skills cost no money, but pay off big time. Invaluable difference.  

But you deserve an answer for your $1k. The best one I know is it makes no sense to upgrade to a new component before extracting full performance from what you have. The more constrained the budget the more true this is. So put that table on some Townshend Pods, or a Platform, whichever you prefer and can make work. This will almost certainly be a greater improvement than the same money spent on a new table.   

If you want to go cheaper, and test the waters, get a set of Nobsound springs. Only $30. Then when you hear how good this works upgrade to Townshend and move the Nobsound down the chain to your amp or phono stage or whatever.  

The more experience you get with how music is supposed to sound the easier it will be to ditch that expander DSP stuff that is messing up all the good vibes coming off your vinyl. Selling those will free up funds for that new table and arm.

The biggest upgrade you could make would be to ditch all of that signal processing for a good two channel integrated amp. A lot of newbies think they like the gimmicky sound fields, but once you've heard two channel done right, you won't worry about all that hokey stuff.

Oz

I’m thinking about getting a new turntable to replace my 4 year old Pro-ject Debut Carbon with an acrylic platter and 2M Blue cartridge (with about 600 hours on it). My budget right now is about $1000 but would consider spending a bit more for right turntable.

Your elliptical stylus tip is probably worn out with 600 hrs on it, replace the stylus with higher model (advanced profile).

If you want to upgrade the SOUND this is all you need to know and it’s written by ORTOFON:

"Cartridge is the key factor in high fidelity reproduction of phonograph records. This is logical, since the cartridge, via the stylus, makes the first and only contact with the record. It is the unit which transforms groove undulations into electrical signals. The stylus has to move (to the left and right, up and down) at very high speeds, deal with extremely high forces, yet maintain surface contact at tracking forces consistent with low record wear, and ensure high channel separation for stereo reproduction.

It is cartridge performance, therefore, that determines basic sound quality before the signals are amplified and played through your loudspeakers. Advanced stylus profile (natural diamond) distributes the stylus pressure over a much wider contact area within the groove than is possible with conventionally shaped diamonds. This provides greatly reduced wear on both record and stylus at the recommended tracking force. In addition, the advanced stylus profile (such as FineLine, Replicant-100, Shibata, LineContact, Stereohedron, MicroLine or MicroRidge…) also provides better tracking ability and lower distortion at high frequencies in the critical inner turns of the groove. Compared with other stylus materials the advanced profiles do cost more, but the extra expense is fully justified by the resulting superior performance and extended life."