Jrd351 and Jjmali,
The man heard what he heard. If he listens to my sytem he'll hear it again. It doesn't take half an hour to hear the superiority of a good analog rig, half a minute might be enough. As to the choice of music auditioned, who are we to say? Surely he knows his own tastes.
Rlips,
I can add little to Twl's recommendation, which will give you an immensely satisfying rig that is much better than mid-level, and much handsomer than an SME! My Twl-ophiled analog front end also cost about $7K, see my system for details.
I chose stepup transformers because I already had a MM phono stage in my preamp. I am very happy with the BentAudio stepups: variable loading and enough gain to bury all tube noise. Strongly recommended. Even some well regarded tube MC phono stages like the $4K Aesthetix Rhea are admitted to be a bit noisy. I might keep the stepups even if I had one of those.
The man heard what he heard. If he listens to my sytem he'll hear it again. It doesn't take half an hour to hear the superiority of a good analog rig, half a minute might be enough. As to the choice of music auditioned, who are we to say? Surely he knows his own tastes.
Rlips,
I can add little to Twl's recommendation, which will give you an immensely satisfying rig that is much better than mid-level, and much handsomer than an SME! My Twl-ophiled analog front end also cost about $7K, see my system for details.
I chose stepup transformers because I already had a MM phono stage in my preamp. I am very happy with the BentAudio stepups: variable loading and enough gain to bury all tube noise. Strongly recommended. Even some well regarded tube MC phono stages like the $4K Aesthetix Rhea are admitted to be a bit noisy. I might keep the stepups even if I had one of those.