SACD vs Analog

A Rega P9 will not only outperform the SACD but also give you a good dose of that high end digital sound. More importantly do you have the vinyls to start this journey or are you willing to start afresh ?

Many/most who venture into analog just for a trial run, just to see if it can really better their existing high quality digital player are actually looking for "sound" and not "experience". The first few months are enough to either put them off or convert them as believers. The hunt for great "sound" is quite common in digital domain and one who is coming from it would not want to give up great sound to experience better music many a times. Resolution is the name of the game in digital after all. So a vinyl setup which can truly beat top quality digital playback (which OP has) in all ways and actually make a digital guy an analogue convert has to be a very good one IMO. $4k is just okay to start with but nothing even close to serious in analogue domain. I have seen people who start with low budgets in analogue, actually miss the analogue bus forever because they hear less resolution than a average DVD player and add to that so much more hassles. They never know what a good analogue is all about, they dont even care to know after this.

IMO, a well restored EMT 938 from one of the EMT engineers would be a great start. It comes with its matched tonearm, cartridge and phonostage, all of them of very high quality with almost plug n play nature. Here are some links where it is available:
http://www.jpvanvliet.nl/58160.html
http://www.emt-profi.de/index-b.htm
http://www.fabtech.de/en_emt-turntables_emt938.html

A friend of mine who has the EMT 938 with EMT 929 tonearm and TSD-15 cartridge tells me that this turntable doesnt react to isolation platforms, it sounds the same no matter where you keep it and it is dead silent in the grooves unless the record is really really damaged. How cool is that ?

Pani,Thanks for suggesting EMT. I had a look into links you provided and it's very interesting.

It is a pleasure to be able to see a happy analogue listener. Those EMTs are legendary TTs and if by any chance you do not like listening to LPs on one of these TTs you can be sure of two things:

1. LPs are not for you (which is a very rare case)

2. You get your investment back with minimal loss, because these TTs have great resale value.

BTW, among the three EMT engineers Mr.Dusch seems to be the most popular. He not only restores these TTs to original condition but also upgrades the phonostage section to accommodate wider frequency bandwidth to cater to new age hifi system's resolution. And he also gives a warranty with all his products.