Vinyl lovers I must be crazy

Orpheus,

I have 200+ records and at least 100 78's. I am also aware that new records can be very expensive but what isn't expensive. There are still retail stores that I know that sell new and used vinyl and very reasonable costs.

you can only reach nirvana through the eightfold path

table, arm, cart, phono, cleaning, alignment, isolation, and recordings

$5K minimum

Yeah, the cost of records, both new and used, is something to consider if you plan to expand or/and improve your collection. In my case it is $20-$25 per record on average, this includes the cost of shipping from places like Japan and Germany. I have $4 records and I have $100 records. I don't go over $100, this must be something incredible for me to do it.

I was referring to the "poor man's" delusional nirvana. There is no comparison between the rigs discussed here and the one's we listened to in the 70's. If you are aware of the price of the trip to paradise, enjoy the journey. You will experience new sensations, when you hear those old records on a new rig.

I recently read about an audiophile who owns a new Joule Electra Pre, a CAT amp, and listens exclusively to PC. Vinyl ripped to PC via a megabuck rig, sounds as good coming out, as it did going in. I listen to vinyl and digital via the PC playback list. I can not hear any loss of sonics.

Elizabeth, while I have read about a lot of amps, ARC is the best I have actually heard.

Inna, I never shop for cheap records because my "objects of desire" are too unique; they usually cost $30 or $35. There are people willing to pay $200. for some of my records, I have pointed them out to my heirs.

Sorry but you're not going to replicate the sound of vinyl with digital. Not any digital. I've tried numerous times with the Weiss ADC in my studio going to 24/192 and re-playing on my Weiss DAC1. There may be more expensive "digital rigs" but few that sound better, and the vinyl still kills it.