Turntable upgrade or not ?

The audio rule of upgrading holds true. If you want to substantially increase performance, you ususally have to double the money spent. So if your table is in the $5K range, look to spend $10K to really get the jump in performance. In the meantime, check out what you can do to your table to improve performance. Is the arm and cartridge really set up as well as they can be? Are you changing VTA for different records? Adjusting VTA for different recordings is crucial to get top shelf performance. Have you experimented with tracking at different tracking forces? Is the table on a first class stand? If you do not have VPI's motor controller, get it. This would be a huge step forward in performance. Are you using the best tonearm VPI makes? How about using VPI's ring weight? How about their new rim drive if it is available for the scout? Could you be using a better cartridge? There is lots you can do to optimize the very table you now have before you move on to a more expensive rig. By the way, if you buy a new table and it is not truly set up really well, it won;t give you the performance you want regardless of the price tag. Oh yes, one last thing, are you using a really good phono stage or preamp with an integrated phono stage? Does your phono stage enable you to adjust cartidge loading? Does it have adequate gain for the cartridge you are using?

What cartridge and arm? What phono amplifier? Look at those and upgrade in one of those depts. The VPI is a great machine.

Agree with Tfkaudio on the change of tonearm.

Scoutmaster is a good table; the tonearm is weak.

Elinor,

I have to respectfully disagree. The correlation between price and performance in audio isn't that obvious. To get better performance we have to pay a lot more is what magazines and dealers want us to believe. Does an $1,000 amp sound better than an $500 amp? Most likely. Does an $3,000 amp sound better than an $1,000 amp? Probably. Does an $8,000 amp sound better than an $3,000 amp? It is hard to say.

I have heard many modest priced well matched systems sound considerably better than mega-buck super systems.

As far as TT goes, in my experience, price is even less relevant. I had done a side-by-side comparison between an Aries 2- (an upgraded Aries to 2 status) and a Scoutmaster. Aries had the 10.5 arm, Scoutmaster had the 9 arm, both had Helikon cart installed. My friends and I all found that Scoutmaster sounded better than the Aries for much lower price. Well, it didn't go well with me because I was the one who own the Aries.

The point is, don't assume higher price means better performance. The overall system synergy is far more important.

The VPI and the Avid sound very different, one must decide which camp you're in. It's often hard to compare things that are sonically completely different and decide which one is "better" and what determines "better".