Speakers or Turntable upgrade

If your room is the right size, consider either the Ohm Walsh 1000s or 2000s.  They are a fantastic rock speaker (they do every genre well).  Plus, they don't get that congested sound many speakers suffer from at higher volume.  Ohm offers a 120 day in home audition.

Speakers will almost always make a more noticable difference than anything else in a system. With your budget, there are many options especially if you buy used . Happy hunting.

I have the goldenear tritan 1 r in my home theater they sold Def tec and started goldenear.my Def tec are 7000sc great like the 1 r .the music  room has a used pair now. Good set of used speakers leave you cash for other upgrades latter. Enjoy the music. Tekton makes a good rock and roll speaker.stay healthy.

There are many ways to go with your upgrade(s).  That being said, keep in mind that speakers are always the business end of any sound system.  Spend some serious seat-time, if you can, with a pair of Revel F206.  I have no idea how these might match with your power source or your room acoustics, but they are hard to beat for the price. 

As for a TT upgrade, I would recommend you have a look at the MoFi Ultradeck with Mastertracker.  IMHO, you'd have to go into the 5K price point range to get a better TT than that.

Good Luck!

Diary of a hack audio hobbyist and the Paradigm ethos. Studio 100 v1 and v2, S8 owner.

Sit about three or four feet in front of one of your Studio's. With music playing listen for each driver.

If you can distinguish each driver that's exactly what's wrong with Paradigm's core design.

Within minutes of installing with, at the time, far more expensive used Avalon Acoustics Eidolons right next to the Paradigm's I couldn't distinguish the Avalon's individual drivers without placing an ear very closely to each of them. Coherence.

Along with coherence far better phase and time performance. Even my family could immediately hear the difference. 

Like a poor subwoofer setup you simply don't understand the audible difference until you compare things first hand and usually in your own home.

Despite my decades in this hobby, countless brick and mortar and audio show auditions I simply didn't know what I was hearing. Now I can easily hear systems with questionable time and phase attributes. I still need to get up close to hear a coherence issue. 

I have first hand experience with only two speaker manufactures who's products you might be able to find used within your budget. Vandersteen, Treo's and possibly Avalon Arcus. Clearly, there may be many more. 

Absolutly crawl test your room for the optimal subwoofer position and performance. All the best.