Another amateur in need of advice

Cleanshirst here is what we would tell you in 30 years of professional experience.

1: Get the foundation as good as you can which means better speakers and amplifier, which means spending less on the deck.

There are source first audiophiles and we totally agree that a better source makes a huge difference, however, you will have more difficulty hearing the improvements in the source on a lower level amplifier or less full range loudspeakers.

One of the best bits of advice we have given our clients in a similar situation is to purchase a Rega P3 the current table is $1100 with an Elyis cartridge and the sound is fantastic, one of the coolest things you can do is to easily upgrade from the Rega in the future by removing the tonearm, the Rega tonearms are universally praised and have been used for years by many companies on their tables so you can in the future take your arm and cart and install that in a zillion other tables that all accept a Rega mount.

Another way of getting better sound is by using dealer demos.

You should always go for a floor standing loudspeaker over a bookshelf as the floor standing loudspeakers will have a much bigger sound and take up the same amount of floor space as a monitor on a stand.
Your choice of the Quad speakers is a good one they are amazing for a budget speaker the floor standing S4 at $1,800.00 will be very hard to beat they have unbelievable treble clarity and throw a big sound stage.
As per amplifiers the Nuprime Ida 8 is very impressive at $1,000.00 and the Rega Brio has an excellent phono stage and is a terrific little amplifier.
So here would be our recommendations:
Rega Brio                $1,000Rega RP6 Elyis cart $1,100Quad S4   speakers $1,800
brand new                $3,900.00

if you went for your deck  Add $1100
and you are still at $5k and if you were to purchase a system like that many dealers would throw in the cables i know we would.

The only missing parts of the equation is what kind of music do you listen to and have you heard any of this gear?  The type of music you listen to will help guide your choice of speakers if you like bass heavy music many speakers may not do it for you.

You should go and visit some dealers and determine what kind of sound do you like.

Dave and TroyAudio Doctor NJ

Cleanshirt,

Audio Doctor in NJ, should be on your short list of places in your area to visit. We have the products you are interested in and are easy to get to from NYC, via the Path, or by Bus, not to mention by purchasing from NJ we can save you NYC sales tax as well.

We carter to the begining audiophile as well as the advanced, and we are the NYC area displaying Quad dealer, we also have Rega, Nad, Nuprime, Kef, Dali, Paradigm, PSB, and a few others speakers and electronics lines that are really good and are in your price range.

You should not be intimated at visiting the NYC dealers as most of them will treat you fine even if you are not a high roller. The only issue with many NYC dealers is they will not have a good selection of affordable gear. Most of the NYC stores due to high rent sell mostly more expensive rigs however, most of them do have a few options at the lower price points. 

Right now we have demo speakers from KEF R series, for a very good price, as well as demo Gradient and Gershman loudspeakers as well, most demo models are being blown out for 50% off so you could snag yourself a $4,000.00 pair of speakers for $2k and have the pleasure of listening to them and knowing they will work for you.

We have other demo amplifiers to get you a fantastic system that will work for your budget, heck we even have a Rega Brio demo for $500 not the current one but the last one and we have a liberal trade up policy for display goods.

Helotech, you have some good suggestions, the new Technics turntable looks very good, the issue with your entire system recommendation is that this is a novice buyer who is basically shopping based upon research and not experience, he really doesn’t have a clue what he is going to like the sound of, and other than the KEF LS 50 he would be buying blind 100%.

The most prudent thing is for this begining and budding music lover/audiophile to actually listen to a system and then make his decisions on what actually sounds good to him, rather then guessing.

This is what a dealer can bring to the table, he is next to one of the world’s biggest cities with many dealers that he can visit and thus he can hear many different things that he may really like.

And other than room size we still don’t know what kind of music, does he play loud, are the speakers physical size important, are the speakers looks important, will he ever want to play movies on the system.

Go forth Cleanshirt and start to visit as many dealers as you can and then formulate what exactly calls to you. You will start to learn how and what does what and then you can start to educate yourself to making more intelligent choices based on having actual experience.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ