Analog point of entry...

That's just Marco. Read some of his answers - a very well informed audio guy, but can sometimes be just silly - SILLY I TELL YOU!

That aside, I am also interested in what others have to say about this subject as I am entertaining the same idea as Pawlowski6132.

David

Readster, I think YOU need to hone your sense. I too was being funny. (The smily face at the end of my sentence was a tell.)

Also, I'm very familiar with Marco's posts in other threads; agreed, very knowledgeable.

If you want something audiophile approved you will probably end up spending $2000 minimum. Thats going with a $1000 table and arm combo plus another $1000 for cartridge and phono stage. The well tempered is a good suggestion if you go this route. I owned a well tempered for many years and its a good belt drive system. The damped arm makes everything pretty{too?} smooth but the bass is only fair. I found something much better with the Lenco idler wheel system but that entails finding a separate tonearm{as well as a Lenco} and before you know it your into armboards, plinths and cartridge swapping but hey I guess thats vinyl{maybe too much hands on}. The advantage is that its much cheaper and you will ultimately have more cartridge choices depending on the tonearm {tonearms} you buy. A problem with this stategy is that even good non-audiophile approved tonearms are becoming expensive lately. Good luck.

I just got back into vinyl playback about a month ago. Here's what I acquired for a total of about $1,200 US:

- ProJect RPM-5 turntable with 9c tonearm (carbon fibre tube), comes with phono cable;
- Clearaudio Aurum Classic Wood moving magnet cartridge;
- ProJect PhonoBox preamp;
- Dust cover for turntable;
- LP cleaning solution (home brew of Stereophile formula made by the store where I purchased the rig) and record brush;
- LAST record preservative and stylus cleaner solutions.

I already had an extra pair of interconnect cable to hook up the phono preamp to my line preamp, a 0.5m length of Zu Cable Gede (about $150). The rest of my audiobsession is described on my system page on Audiogon.

Since I don't really have a point of reference for vinyl, not having listened to any for the last 15 to 16 years, my comments about sound quality should be read with that in mind. However, I have been really impressed with the intimacy, presence, three-dimensionality and organic nature of the music played on this analog set-up. Even though this hardware might be considered to be at the lower end of high-end audio, everything that I've read about analog playback versus CD has been more or less confirmed. In a word, better!

All the best,

Max

PS Marco may be silly, but in a funny ha-ha way. ;-)