I'm interested in vinyl.........

I would recommend a Rega P2 over an MMF7. But be that as it may, there is no point at which CD sounds better than vinyl. I maintain that a P2 with a good cartridge on it (Dynavector 10x4 comes to mind) sounds better than any CD player in my store, even the really expensive ones.

Now if you get a really high end CD player and some XRCD's, you can get surprisingly close to the sound of vinyl on an entry level deck. But as soon as you step up to a higher end analog rig it's all over. Analog just smokes digital, even at a fraction of the investment.

Durwood,

What else you need depends to some extent on the cartridge that you get with the tt. If it's a high output moving magnet, then there's not much else.

If you go for a moving coil (esp. low to medium output), youi might find that the phono stage of the Plinius is lacking a little in gain.

Currently I can name examples that I have in my collection on CD as well as on vinyl:
Dire Straits S/T where vinyl sounded more superb on Rega P3/Elys/Creek OBH8 than on Cary 303/200.
Same comparison was made with Dire Straits "On Every Street",
Irmin Schmidt "Musk at Dusk", David Sylvian "Brilliant Trees", Frank Zappa "Joe's Garage"...

There are some different conclusions can be arround but hear this: CD-player or separates are DIGITAL and MMF7 is ANALOGUE and in this case no doubt that many people prefere $500 analogue setup(including phono) over $4k CD-players.

I believe that my $4k analogue rig(including cart,phono) can't probably beat any CD- or SACD-player for any price cause it's not analoge. If you spend $3...4k carefully selecting components i.e. cart, phono on analogue setup, you will hit the point where investing more in digital will make no sence in comparison to what you've already got in analogue. That's where the competition for digital stops and for analogue still goes and goes...

Thanks for everyone's input