What would you upgrade?

Agreed, noromance. Scratch the turntable all together. If I'm heavily investing in dead formats I might as well go out an buy a SACD player.

Which reminds me..

Any OPPO owners in this thread? I've read amazing things about its capabilities as a DAC and could kill 2 birds with one stone using it for bluray as well. Any users with any of the tube modified ones?

I must agree with Noromance. Quality of a system begins at the source. If my budget for a turntable, arm and cartridge is $700, then I would budget no more than $1000-1500 on amplification to include phonostage. Probably about the same for speakers. I would then spend the rest at record stores. I believe you could put together a fine sounding system for under half your $8000 total budget. If I had to spend $8000, I would cons ider turntables in the $2000 range. Spotify is great for background music, and finding new artists when not spinning records.

I would replace your dac (definitely one of the most limiting items in your stack) with the Berkeley Dac on sale here for just under $2,000. That leaves you $3k and, even though I like the rainmakers in a small, nearfield system, spend $3k on the larger totems and see where you are. Five grand can do alot, or a little... but, dont do this to listen to 320kps material. Better ff blowing the five grand on a girl or vacation. (vinyl and sacd are not dead formats - they blow away anything you have been listening to).

Hi Mesch.

Thanks for the reply.

You touch on point worthy of discussion. How we listen.

The way I listen is primarily the 'background music' way, with my stereo in the background while I'm doing something else. No dedicated listening room with one chair in the middle. Nothing wrong with that at all, just nothing right about it for me.

Most of the time I'm not listening super critically. Just looking for a fuller range of sound then what I currently have speaker wise, as well as higher quality components then the ones that I'm having some trouble with at the moment. I'm planning on going to demo a pair of 1027be tomorrow if possible as I'm not ruling out the Focal sound all together. They might get 75% of the way there if all goes well.

Regarding formats, perhaps "on life support" is a better way to put it, Cerrot.

That's not to say their sound quality is not more enjoyable, as I know vinyl to sometimes be. Which is why I've considered adding a turntable in the first place.

Still, 25-40% of the budget would be overkill for an item that would be used less then 25% of the time, in my opinion. I'd sooner take that money and invest more in a DAC to max my return on digital playback.

" 320kbs MP3 through Spotify "

This is the weak link in my opinion. Try HDTracks.com and spend about $20 on a download you love. See if you notice a distinct difference.

If you do, spend the $5k on speakers, preferably very slightly used....upgrade one thing at a time, and make it a big deal.....don't spread it around too thin.

I wish you the best of luck!!!!