Upgrade My Turntable - How Much Do I Need to Spend?


I have recently fallen in love with listening to vinyl on my turntable.  In recent years, I have spent most of my listening time with digital music stored on my server (flac files recorded from CD's), but recently I discovered the beauty of placing an album on the turntable and listening to the entire album.  It's been a wonderful find for me.

My 2-channel room features:

  • McIntosh C260 Tube Preamp
  • McIntosh MC452 Solid State Amp
  • Martin Logan Montis speakers
  • Various upgraded cables and wires
  • Acoustically treated listening room
  • Pro-Ject Debut Carbon DC turntable
  • Ortofon Blue Cartridge

My question is:  how big of a step up do I need to make with my turntable to take full advantage of the other components in my system?  I do not intend to do further upgrades with my speakers or amp system, but I would like to step up my game from the introductory level turntable that I bought years ago.  

I've been doing lots of reading and studying, but I would love to hear advice from some of the analog experts on this forum.  (Please don't flame my current system - there are reasons I love my McIntosh and those components are not going anywhere!)  Should I make a move to a $4000 turntable?  Or????  I would love to find a lightly used Rega RP10, and call my search over - but what do others think?

One thing that I believe I value is a simple setup.  I have read horror stories about how much time and frustration can go into getting a turntable setup and then constantly having to tinker for optimal performance.  I don't see myself enjoying that part of the process.

Thanks!

hikerneil

@lewm 

If you have a noise that is say 24 dB down in the left channel and add the noise, 24 dB down, to the right channel, the combined volume will be 21 dB down or double the power, not double the volume. 

@whart 

Isolation is ALWAYS necessary when it comes to turntables. Turntables are vibration measuring devices and they do not care where the vibration is coming from. The environment is full of extraneous vibration from your refrigerator kicking in to the truck running down the street. People who live in NYC are very familiar with this problem. I call it environmental rumble, it is even a problem if you live in the country, only not as bad. People with turntables that are not suspended. Put your stylus down on a stationary record and turn the volume all the way up. You will see your woofer moving, shaking. The turntable is measuring the rumble in your environment. If I try the same experiment on an SME or Sota you will see nothing, no shaking at all. Any unsuspended turntable needs to be put on a suspension platform. With the weight of the turntable the resonance frequency of the suspension should be below 3 Hz. 

The answer is that when you sum the two channels in phase you cancel signals due to vertical deflection of the cantilever. So Elliot was in error to claim such noise is doubled.

I like Stereo5 recommendation because it is a great tt plus, you have a removable headshell to change out cartridges in the future. 
you have a good tt. I might recommend you upgrade the cartridge to a Hana SL or a cartridge HANA ML. They both come on a high output in case you only have a moving magnet input. Next is the phono stage. There are some killer phono stages out there especially in the used market. Vinyl lovers are nuts. We always want better and better. The one I use now is the Hegel V10. Down the road I will get the ARC Ref 2se. I love a tube phono stage. 
if you can wait a little bit you are going to start seeing Rega P10 tt on the market because the new $12 NAIA  has just hit the US. First hand I know this will be much better than the P10. Also, Ortofon just came out with cartridges that fit Rega without using shims. Most important is the setup of the cartridge. Especially when it comes to Zenith,Azimuth, and Anti-Skate. It is worth it to have it set up professionally. Once you get those three correct it is easy to dial in your turntable to your system and ears yourself. Buy a River Stone VTF scale from Amazon to take care of that yourself. 

You don’t need to spend 4 grand. My friend has the Technics SL-1200 GR and it is an outstanding table for about 2 grand. It also comes in black ( SL-1210 GR). It is a definite upgrade to the table that you are now using!

 

@lewm 

Mijostyn is correct. The volume is not doubled as you stated.

the combined volume will be 21 dB down or double the power, not double the volume. 

FYI- check your work before posting something that is incorrect.