if you had this system, what would you do to make it sound the best you can

After a certain point it's not about the equipment, but how you setup the equipment in your room.  You have very good equipment that would easily reveal the benefits of good setup.

First experiment with finding the optimal speaker/listening positions.  Here you're really looking for the smoothest bass response and most precise imaging/soundstage info.  Inches matter.

Second, are all your components positioned on solid, non resonant surfaces?  This is particularly important for your turntable.

Third, meticulously align your cartridge/tonearm.

At this point your basics are covered.  If you want to go further you could explore room acoustic treatments, cabling and power conditioning.  Careful setup is time consuming, but it's cheap.  The rest of the stuff can get very expensive.

jason wrote exactly (well almost) what I was going to suggest:

"jasonbourne71

752 posts

03-24-2024 at 06:56am 

You didn't list your present phono cartridge. This being a mechanical transducer like a speaker will have a different sound compared to other companies' cartridges. And like speakers subjective impressions are important. You might want to buy and try a different phono cartridge."

Decouple your speakers from the floor. Starting with least expensive, like sorbothane.

I would agree that your speakers may indeed be your weakest link. You could set a trip to a city (if you don’t live near one with some audio stores) and listen to other speakers with the music you like in hand. The rest of your equipment like good to me. Of course you may want to explore if you want to spend more on analog or digital, because each source can eat up your budget the higher you go. That’s if you want to improve your media route.