New user phono question. Comes with free story.
So once upon a time I saved a record player from the trash. It don’t think it was anything special as those things go, but it was much beloved by me. It was the first, and until recently, the only “system” I had ever heard that made me understand why people sit and spend hours just listening to music.. And did I ever put in the hours. I was in school then, and time was a luxury I had. That little record player spun so much that it eventually started spinning faster and faster until I couldn’t listen to it. Without the knowhow to repair it, or the money to replace, it went into the trash with the intention to replace it.. Someday... Then came wife, then came kids.
Fast forward 15 years, and it occurred to me one morning that I had the time to listen to music again. To me the choice of media was obvious. I had fallen in love with vinyl, and it was time to rekindle the love afair. That was about two months ago. It all started innocently enough, borrowing dusty components from be basements of friends and family to cobble something together that would reproduce sound. It was okay, but the first attempt didn’t come close to the sound I remembered. From there I started shopping for better components and things spiraled out of hand rather quickly.
So far, I’ve bought an old Sony PS-X6 turntable with a Sure M95-ED cartridge, a Technics SU-V6 amp, and a set of Vaughn Triode speakers. I wanted to encourage my kids to use the stereo too, so to make it more convenient, I decided to add a digital source. That wound up being Amazon music, a Lavaudio blue-tooth adapter, and a Denifrips Ares II. And this brings me to the problem.
The digital source sounds better, as in WAY better. On digital, listening gives me that first date butterflies feeling every time, and I just want to turn it up, and up some more. On vinyl there is just less, less of everything. Now I am at a cross roads. I have to decide weather to put more money into the vinyl or just abandon a few hundred pounds of records which I have recently discovered are all available in very nice quality digital anyway. This finally brings me to the question. Budget is a concern for me and I’m wondering if I have just fluked into some equipment that under-performs on records, or dollar for dollar, is it just harder to get performance from vinyl? Do you think it would be realistic to get to the performance of the digital side of the system for say, a $1000 investment, or is that just a pipe dream? I already have an integrated MC phono stage, so maybe I should try another cartridge?
If you’ve read this far. Thanks!
