2. analog
  3. 181933-179481

If you had $12k / £10k to upgrade your analogue front-end...

Hi all,

I am upgrading my system in my listening room bit-by-bit. This room is for focused listening of music only. No movies. In the future I will be looking looking to upgrade my analogue front-end and am thinking of a budget of around $12k / £10k for a turntable, tonearm, cart and phono stage/pre-amp. I listen to all sorts of music from electronic, bass-heavy vinyl, jazz, hip-hop, rock (new and old), ambient (Cinematic Orchestra, Nils Frahm etc...) and lots of soul/funk type tracks. So quite varied.

If you had $12k/£10k to spend, what combination of turntable, tonearm, cart and phone stage/pre-amp would you go for? I'm looking for suggestions to help with my research. I'm unsure what the balance should be between them. For example, should I go for a Rega Planar 10 with Aphelion 2 cart (£6,840) and give myself just over £3k to spend on a phono stage. Or spend less on the cart (Rega Planar 10 with Apheta 3 is £4,950) and get a more expensive phono stage.

Turntable brands I've been thinking of are Rega, Clearaudio, Technics, VPI, AVID, Thorens, Michell Engineering, VPI, SME etc... but don't really know where to start.

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

cainullah
grislybutter
3,134 posts
 

@cainullah

so I feel like I have been living under a rock until now, not knowing that I need to spend more on the phono stage than the TT - which is what many posts are saying here and other relevant threads.

So I used the AVID price list to infer what they think (it seems logical to assume that they are putting together comparable components and they are not selling super high end e.g. TTs and mediocre phono stages). Here is a list

  min USD max USD
speaker 10500 250000
turntable 1100 45000
phono stage 1100 9000

 

it looks like AVID "thinks" the low end turntable should cost the same as its matching phono stage. And the high end TT should work OK with a phono stage 1/5 of the TT"s price (of course I simplifying - the dots are not connected, it’s just roughly 5 levels in each category).
You can’t go near this comparison with their speaker prices, which are 10-25 times higher than their corresponding components.

In short, I did live under a rock, not knowing about the need for a decent phono stage.

cainullah OP
29 posts
 

Sorry for my slow response @grislybutter . We had a burglary on Monday night whilst we were all asleep upstairs. They stole £10k worth of stuff so I guess there goes my analogue front end for a while. I'll need to save that back up.

Really interesting re: the AVID price list. I was thinking a 1/3 Turntable 1/3 cart 1/3 phono stage split. I definitely won't be buying a $250000 pair of speakers!!

grislybutter
3,134 posts
 

@cainullah I am so sorry!!

was anything insured? What a bummer.

arcticdeth's avatar
arcticdeth
1,572 posts
 

Get the newest Technics SL-1200mk version.

 

no belts, no bs, just drop needle and enjoy for 40 years. 
 

use rest on a solid preamp. Parasound, Sanders, Bryston, 

use the rest on music & Scotch!

cainullah OP
29 posts
 

@grislybutter we're currently renovating our house so staying in a rental. We thought the landlord had insurance but informed us on Tuesday he does not. So we're 10k down unfortunately. At least the kids are safe. That's the main thing.

@arcticdeth I like your style!

More to discover