Hi John 1,
I was in the same situation as you just a few months ago and ultimately decided to go with the Spacedeck, a Modified Origin Live 250 arm, and a Dynavector 20XH cartridge. I have a few hundred albums, but had them stored in boxes for the past several years, having bought the hype several years ago that CD was a vast improvement. Indeed, on the low-to-midfi equipment I had at the time, I would call it a sonic draw and give the edge to CD due to simplicity and durability. Thus, I stopped buying albums and when I finally took the high end plunge about four years ago, I went with an integrated that did not have a phono stage. The albums went into storage. Recently, however, I got upgrade fever and decided to get back into vinyl. At first, I was mildly disappointed--the sound was slightly thin and/or compressed, even though it was great to hear a few old, out-of-print albums again. OK, finally, the punch line. The cartridge hadn't broken in. Now, after 50 or 60 hours of play, the sound has improved beyond anything I would have believed. Now I see what all the fuss over vinyl is about. On my system and for my ears, there is no comparison between the quality of vinyl and CD playback, and I have a very decent CDP (Electrocompaniet 24/192). The EMC-1 is a terrific player, but no CD player I have heard approximates the palpable, organic sound of this relatively inexpensive turntable set-up.
I agree with the previous post--you would probably be fine with any of these choices, as long as the table is set up properly. But if you are leaning toward the Spacedeck, I can tell you from my own experience that it is a keeper in my system, at least until I can afford a Rockport.
Boy, are you in for some good times ahead. Even a friend of mine who is not really into this hobby but does love music remarked that Willie Nelson's LP 'Stardust' sounded better than anything she had ever heard while visiting the other night, and that was after listening for an extended period of time to CDs, including MSFL and XRCD recordings. I paid thirty bucks a pop for those CDs, four bucks for the Nelson LP in the used bin. So now, after spending the last ten years methodically replacing my albums with CDs, now I am spending time figuring out how I am going to replace 2000 CDs with albums.
I hope you'll let us know what you decide and how it works out for you.
best regards,
I was in the same situation as you just a few months ago and ultimately decided to go with the Spacedeck, a Modified Origin Live 250 arm, and a Dynavector 20XH cartridge. I have a few hundred albums, but had them stored in boxes for the past several years, having bought the hype several years ago that CD was a vast improvement. Indeed, on the low-to-midfi equipment I had at the time, I would call it a sonic draw and give the edge to CD due to simplicity and durability. Thus, I stopped buying albums and when I finally took the high end plunge about four years ago, I went with an integrated that did not have a phono stage. The albums went into storage. Recently, however, I got upgrade fever and decided to get back into vinyl. At first, I was mildly disappointed--the sound was slightly thin and/or compressed, even though it was great to hear a few old, out-of-print albums again. OK, finally, the punch line. The cartridge hadn't broken in. Now, after 50 or 60 hours of play, the sound has improved beyond anything I would have believed. Now I see what all the fuss over vinyl is about. On my system and for my ears, there is no comparison between the quality of vinyl and CD playback, and I have a very decent CDP (Electrocompaniet 24/192). The EMC-1 is a terrific player, but no CD player I have heard approximates the palpable, organic sound of this relatively inexpensive turntable set-up.
I agree with the previous post--you would probably be fine with any of these choices, as long as the table is set up properly. But if you are leaning toward the Spacedeck, I can tell you from my own experience that it is a keeper in my system, at least until I can afford a Rockport.
Boy, are you in for some good times ahead. Even a friend of mine who is not really into this hobby but does love music remarked that Willie Nelson's LP 'Stardust' sounded better than anything she had ever heard while visiting the other night, and that was after listening for an extended period of time to CDs, including MSFL and XRCD recordings. I paid thirty bucks a pop for those CDs, four bucks for the Nelson LP in the used bin. So now, after spending the last ten years methodically replacing my albums with CDs, now I am spending time figuring out how I am going to replace 2000 CDs with albums.
I hope you'll let us know what you decide and how it works out for you.
best regards,