Substantial Upgrade


Longtime lurker, first-time poster:  My wife and I got into vinyl about five years ago and have been steadily collecting records ever since.  We love spinning records, and listen to a lot of jazz, pop, and classical music.  We started modestly with an AT LP120, and are lucky to have a friend who just happened to have a pair of Totem Rainmakers sitting in his garage collecting dust, which he gave to us, along with a TSC sub and all cables.  We have decided it is time to invest in our own system.

I've done a lot of research and read numerous threads on this topic here and elsewhere, and we've narrowed our choices down to two tables: the Rega P6 (in the $1500 price range) or the Feickert Volare (in the $3500 bracket).  Either table I'll be getting the Hana ML.  For phonostage, we've narrowed down to the MoFi UltraPhono or the Sutherland KC Vibe mk ii.  I'm hoping I can solicit opinions here on these choices and, in particular, whether the Feickert is going to make a difference for our use case.  Finally, I recognize that the speakers might be outclassed by these upgrades, but we are separately planning to move in the next year and I want to wait and see where our new listening room is going to be before investing in new speakers.    

Thanks in advance. 
bruinuclafan

Showing 1 response by aj523

From experience — in your listening room, do you have wood suspension floors under a concrete foundation like most colonials or high ranches in the US? If so and you choose the Rega, make sure you also buy the shelf for it — footfall is a nasty attribute in these types of homes and the Rega can’t always handle it resulting in vibration, skipped records, etc.

As for the phonostage, you can’t go wrong with a Sutherland (it’s all he does after founding and leaving Martin Logan a long time ago). I also had the KC Vibe, then the 20/20 LPS and the thing about his design is that it’s dead quiet, he focuses on the power supply and really just well made with high end components. There’s really nothing negative ever said about it - it just does everything well. And the new version of the Vibe is supposed to be even better and at less than $1,000 it’s got to be considered right there at the top or near top of its price point.