Speakers
Speakers or Turntable upgrade
I've been bitten by the upgrade bug. It's amazing how a small initial thought can snowball. I found a Clearaudio MM cartridge I forgot I had. It's been sitting in a drawer for 10 years due to upgrading the cartridge out of the box on my Clearaudio Concept TT. My thought was to get a cheap TT to mount the cartridge for my office system.
That turned into finding a good deal on a Rega Planar 2 with an ND cartridge. My other Turntable is a Rega Planar 3 with 2M Bronze. The Planar 2 got sold which led me to a Planar 3 with an Exact 2, but I didn't want the same TT. That led to looking at the Planar 6 and 8. I came to the conclusion that the 6 wouldn't be a big enough jump so I'm looking at a Planar 8 with ND7. Planar 8 would be my main rig and the Planar 3 would go to the office system.
I'm now looking at $3500 and started thinking if my money would be served better by upgrading my speakers instead. Sorry for the meandering post.
My system:
Rega Planar 3, Rotel RC 150, Rotel RB-1080, HTPC with DAC.
Speakers: Paradigm Studio 100 v2. and SVS SB3000 subwoofer
I listen to classic rock, new rock, 80's rock, and metal. I listen at fairly robust volumes.
Am I better off sticking that money into speakers than upgrading my TT?
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- 35 posts total
Rega P3? I just sold one that I upgraded with power supply, sub platter and platter upgrades. I replaced it with a vintage Dual 1219 from fixmydual.com. My taste in music is similar to yours, and I liked the Dual way better than the Rega even with all of the upgrades and the dual costs less than even a stock Rega. |
IMHO, Rega is good for someone who prefers a plug and okay approach but like mediium _grade mentionned. You can get a better sounding TT in that price point. I owned a P10 myself and while it is a very fine engineered pice of equipment it was disappointing sound wise. Agree that you should start with speakers and then you’ll be in a better position to evaluate TT options. Good luck! |
@mustangjeff All of the above suggestions pale in comparison. I have modified systems like yours and taken them to a whole new plateau with the Dirac Live room control in the MiniDSP and subwoofers. Taking the low bass out of you main speakers lowers distortion and increases headroom. Your system will go much louder, cleaner than it is now. Dirac will flatten the response of your system and room and give you total control over the sound with a very flexible digital equalizer. I have no financial connection to any brands or stores. I have used the MiniDSP SHD is three systems including my own. There are two versions the SHD (Streaming, High Definition) and the SHD Studio. The Studio version does not have its own DACs for people who prefer to use higher quality DACs than are in the plain Studio. Because you need to buy two DACs with it, it is the more expensive option. Benchmark Media Systems uses a MiniDSP Studio and two of their own DACs in their show system. Dirac Live is a cloud based system. You measure your system with the microphone supplied with the unit and the measurements are sent over the net to Dirac Live's server that runs the calculations, generates the filters and sends them back to your MiniDSP. This is a great way to provide room control as you do not have to purchase the computer to do the math. The MiniDSP has a programmable subwoofer crossover in it. You turn the filter in your subwoofers off and in your case I would set the crossover at 80 Hz 48 dB.oct. In the equalizer section I would boost 20 up to 50 Hz 10 dB and taper down to 0 dB at 110 Hz. Then drop 20 kHz 6 dB with a very low Q so the the attenuation starts at about 1 kHz. |
- 35 posts total