2. analog
  3. 170559-143787

Forum admiration and requested guidance

My day starts by reading the top post on this site while drinking my morning coffee. I have been a audio enthusiast since the early 1970’s, with my mother playing Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis and The Supremes on vinyl every Saturday morning while growing up.

I’ve always had an analog system to play, and cherish my vinyl collection. It started with my first purchase in 1975 with Led Zeppelin Houses of the Holy and expanded over the years.
Advance 47 years later and I’m finally in a point of my life to splurge. My wife and I put three children thru college and she has given the approval to spend a little money for my love of the audio hobby.

Today I have the following system and looking for advice on going up the ladder of sound quality improvement.

- VPI Scout with JMW 9” arm and Hana SL cartridge 
- Elac PPA-2 phono preamp
- Vincent SA-32 preamp
- Parasound A23
- Q Aqoustics 3050i

some of the biggest improvements since building this system have been in the interconnects. I went with the Mogami 2549 interconnects and Canare 4S11 speaker cables. These really opened up the soundstage and appealed to my ears.

My music room is modest at 10 x 18 with 9 foot ceilings. Please don’t advise to enjoy and buy more vinyl. I truly look up to your advise and suggestions on next steps to improve. My budget today is $10k, with an additional $10k in mid 2022.

Thank in advance to feedback from this outstanding group.

128x128vette5451
chakster's avatar
chakster
6,144 posts
 
@chakster
What modern MM cartridges under $1000, if any, do you recommend?


@ericsch
This one is interesting if you ask for latest innovative design, but only if you can pay €12 000 , there is another model if you can pay more :)


I prefer NOS cartridges from the past, they are new, but they are old. 
chakster's avatar
chakster
6,144 posts
 
Prior to the Hana I had a Nagaoka MP-300 and various Ortofon and Grado cartilages. To my ears the Hana sounds best, although I am curious to advance up the cartridge chain.


Probably because they are nothing special just like nearly all budget modern MM
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,570 posts
 
Boy, are you ever going to have fun! 

It is the two ends that will give you the largest improvement. The middle stuff is clean up and basically depends on what you do at the ends. 

First is speakers and the room. Going for speakers with more directional behavior will make the room easier to deal with, horns or dipoles. If you were a loud rocker I would go with something like Klipsch Cornwalls and subwoofers. If you were a quieter guy who liked a larger more lifelike stage I would go with Magneplanar 3.7i's and subwoofers. The Magneplanars will require a more powerful amp in the end but your A23 will hold the fort. The Cornwalls with tear your head off with the A23. You will need to find and deaden first reflection points which you can do with $30.00 worth of foam acoustic tiles. 

Next I would upgrade your turntable. A Sota Sapphire with a Schroder CB arm would fit. It is the least expensive stable fully isolated table made. I think you can add Vacuum clamping, a big plus. Always get the dust cover. I have a CB arm and am very pleased with it. It's only down side is it does not have an arm rest. Mr Schroder does not like hanging things off his arms, they resonate. I made a locking arm rest for my table and solved that issue. Otherwise the arm is brilliant. The Kuzma 4 Point 9 is a great arm and will also fot
vette5451's avatar
vette5451 OP
65 posts
 
@millercarbon

You mentioned the Decware ZP3 for the phono preamp. On their website it mentions a step up transformer for moving coil cartridges. I’m assuming the ZMC1 would have to be included if I chose to stick with the Hana (Low MC), correct?
Post removed 
More to discover