Wave Kinetics NVS Turntable - Stereophile Review

I probably should not have been shocked by the price of the turntable Plus arm Plus cartridge (Plus a highly specialized stand for the turntable) -somewhere over $65K before you get to put on an album. I was also "not shocked" that the record player did not always "come up to speed" on the 1st attempt, i would be sending the motor and/or controller back the next day if that were to happen to me.
the review of the latest Walker is in the Abs.Sound too and it seems to also present some problems for its owners. at least they got it to sit level now thanks to a new pump modification.
I like records a lot, too, but making a big case out of how good the newest turntables are in extracting more and more information is STILL tempered by a number of very legitimate concerns. I don't know what the "magic number" is for a spending limit on analog playback- $10K? $20K? more? for me personally that would be NMT "10", but i am trying to understand the rationale is (beyond pride of owning a mechanical masterpiece) for putting so much EFFORT into that part of the hobby, with a $5 album as your software/weakest link.

vinyl still sounds better than digital. It's as simple as that. What's the cost of admission for top rate vinyl playback ? Pretty steep....but not necessarily Caliburn, walker, NVS steep....and let's not forget arm, cart and phono stage costs.

David,

i have 10,000 reasons (my Lp collection) to optimize vinyl. however, no doubt that top level vinyl performance does require a sizable commitment. and simply the physical commitment to the space, fine-tuning and energy to change Lps is not for everyone.

i'm less invested in my RTR master tapes, but only have around 125 (200-225 reels) of those. so the thing about vinyl is that there is so much great music on it.

there is a level of vinyl performance maybe at around $20k or a little higher 'all in' for hardware that get's you quite ways near that top level.....and maybe another level over $30k that gets even closer. that very top level is typically not a starting point for vinyl set-ups. and price is not always the best way to look at performance as there is lots of high performing gear that is not ultra expensive. although some of it is quite expensive. and certainly there are plenty of viewpoints on how that goes.