Vinyl Setup Upgrade

[PedroB]

Hi all, would appreciate some input as to things worth considering for an upgrade on my home audio setup.

Currently, I have a cheapish Sony deck with an inbuilt phono stage plugged into a mini Sony all in one with the matching Sony speakers.

I was thinking about maybe secondhand Rega RP3 and either a Creek 4040 amp or an Onkyo A-9010 with some Mission LX-2 or Q Acoustics 3020 speakers.

Any thoughts?

[benz0]

Going digital is a good upgrade over vinyl. Hope this helps!

[anonymous-user]

My first system was a Rega Planar 2, Creek 4040 and Mordaunt-Short bookshelf speakers. The one element I'd change would be to go for bigger speakers from the outset - go for decent floor-standers instead (they don't need to be huge to give better bass response). The Creek amp isn't massively powerful but get some reasonably efficient speakers and you should be fine.

[telecat]

benz0 said:

Going digital is a good upgrade over vinyl. Hope this helps!

Many People find Digital, especially badly executed, to be vastly inferior. Now you can say that the sound "profile" of vinyl is what people find so appealing. to them digital sounds grating. I do like Digital but you do need good kit and need to match it properly. And don't use any form of lossy codec to store it.

[jmorgan]

Upgraded to a rp3 some years ago from a nondescript JVC turntable. The shop let me take in the old deck and records to compare. The difference was very noticeable. This was into an old Arcam 3 that had the phono stage built in. You can get external if the amp does not have it.

However, you can get some spares for the rp3 if second hand is a worry. I need a new belt and cartridge, not a problem to get hold of. Some high street shops will refurb as well.

Cannot help with the rest, only familiar with mine set up and not tried other turn tables but floor standers with spikes (spikes very good, a definite difference), cracking sound out the black plastic spinny thing.

[ian996]

benz0 said:

Going digital is a good upgrade over vinyl. Hope this helps!

It does indeed - it tells us all we need to know about how much you know about the subject.

[legzr1]

ian996 said:

It does indeed - it tells us all we need to know about how much you know about the subject.

To be fair, worn vinyl played on crappily set up TT's with horrible cartridges can sound just as bad as the worst of digital.

A good digital front end or analogue system can add just as much to a modest system as they can take away.

[ian996]

legzr1 said:

ian996 said:

It does indeed - it tells us all we need to know about how much you know about the subject.

To be fair, worn vinyl played on crappily set up TT's with horrible cartridges can sound just as bad as the worst of digital.

A good digital front end or analogue system can add just as much to a modest system as they can take away.

I certainly wouldn't argue with that, but my experience has been that, at any given price-point, from the OP's up, a well-sorted vinyl set-up can give a much more "natural" sound than digital. Both approaches have their artifacts, and different ears will generate differing opinions about which is "better" or "worse", but a sweeping statement that one is an upgrade over the other is uninformed bks.

(I'm not normally quite so confrontational, but just trying to generate enough dialogue to get to 100 posts!)

Edited by ian996 on Wednesday 1st February 09:39

[PedroB]

ian996 said:

legzr1 said:

ian996 said:

It does indeed - it tells us all we need to know about how much you know about the subject.

To be fair, worn vinyl played on crappily set up TT's with horrible cartridges can sound just as bad as the worst of digital.

A good digital front end or analogue system can add just as much to a modest system as they can take away.

I certainly wouldn't argue with that, but my experience has been that, at any given price-point, from the OP's up, a well-sorted vinyl set-up can give a much more "natural" sound than digital. Both approaches have their artifacts, and different ears will generate differing opinions about which is "better" or "worse", but a sweeping statement that one is an upgrade over the other is uninformed bks.

(I'm not normally quite so confrontational, but just trying to generate enough dialogue to get to 100 posts!)

Edited by ian996 on Wednesday 1st February 09:39

Digital for me, is useful for on the go, or backgroundy music while I work. It is convenient. I'm sure, with the right spend both have their own merits, but I have a lot of records I enjoy listening to and don't want to have to re-buy on CD and encode or download as a lossless file...

Also, I quite enjoy the ceremony of putting a record on...

[ian996]

PedroB said:

Digital for me, is useful for on the go, or backgroundy music while I work. It is convenient. I'm sure, with the right spend both have their own merits, but I have a lot of records I enjoy listening to and don't want to have to re-buy on CD and encode or download as a lossless file...

Also, I quite enjoy the ceremony of putting a record on...

When I bought my first "serious" CD player back in about 1999 or 2000 (Wadia 830), I also bought a Project Classic for exactly that reason (loads of LPs that I couldn't /didn't want to buy on CD). I was blown away by how good the Project (which is probably broadly comparable with the Rega the OP is considering) sounded on about 10% of my records. As you move up the analogue ladder, you pull more and more out of a greater proportion of your collection. Analogue is just basically mechanical engineering (albeit with a bit of extra amplification as well), and the level of engineering you can buy today staggers the imagination (as long as you are happy to sell car/remortgage house etc).