What would you upgrade?

"Clearly a lot of room for improvement here."

Ummm...how exactly is that? That's nice equipment - you didn't get any of that by buying 10 gallons of premium unleaded at 7-11. What exactly is wrong with the sound currently coming out? Or is it just that you have $5K that is going nuclear in your pocket and you're absolutely positive that the grass must be greener?

I'm being serious, not sarcastic. Sure, you can definitely have nicer, more expensive equipment, but the OP has zero detail about the room all of that equipment is in, the kind of music being played on it, the quality of files being played, or how it sounds now. Seems like it's spending $5K just to spend $5K. Which is fine too - if that's the case, let us know - lots of cool ways to blow $5K in audio!

I'm thinking your answers - which are very helpful Hybrid81 - may alter the recommendations you get, especially the fact that we're talking about Spotify as the source, with a turntable in the future.

I have Spotify myself, and love it for the variety and convenience and discovering new artists. And it does sound good, better than listening to highly compressed MP3s of course, but as you have already discovered and acknowledged in your post above, it's not great. And the sound quality can vary dramatically, from beautiful to absolutely awful, depending on what they're using for their source. A great example is Til Tuesday's "Voices Carry", off the greatest hits album - I don't know why, but the bass is so horribly boosted that it's like listening in the back of a Honda CRX with 5 subwoofers, but not on the actual album, only on Spotify's version. I can't imagine trying to audition and pick speakers with Spotify as the source music. Actually, wouldn't critique any component based on Spotify, as much as I enjoy the service.

So I guess figure out what you plan to spend on a turntable, cartridge, and phono pre because I think your content source is obviously the weakest link in the chain, and even a $20,000 DAC won't change that, nor will the finest speakers in all the land.

After the turntable, look at new speakers - you're not crazy about what you have and speakers will change the results more than anything else, in my opinion, including the pre-amp and amp.

Hope some of this helps...most of the dudes on here know a heck of a lot more than I do. My system is pretty pedestrian compared to what most here have.

Yes, Hybrid, I think there is an underlying message in a lot of the responses. While many of us enjoy Spotify and/or MP3 streams (when we have to), you just can't judge components based on them. Trying to buy better components in order to make Spotify sound good is sort of like...wanting to make Filet au Poivre, and all you've got is cheap hamburger meat in the fridge, and deciding that hamburger meat will make a better Filet au Poivre if only you had a better stove :-)

You can buy better components, and I'm sure you'll enjoy them and they'll sound good, but they may still not sound as good as if you fed your current system better material. I see you're set to buy some new speakers, that should be a great start, but you may only end up happy when you finally upgrade your source too - until then you're still trying to make Filet au Poivre from hamburger meat (And it doesn't even have to be HDTracks...just FLAC/AIFF/WAV files fed into a decent DAC can sound superb, that's all I'm doing).

Hey Hybrid81, just a couple of quick notes on Spotify. I noticed tonight that there seems to be a sound quality difference between using the Spotify web player vs. the Spotify PC application - web player doesn't sound as good. The PC app has the setting for "high quality" and I can't find that same setting for the web player, which may be the reason, or one of them.

Also, when using the PC application, make sure you uncheck the box for "set the volume level for all tracks". That also made a nice difference for me - on my setup having that box checked dulled the bass dramatically, and rolled off the highs.

You probably already know both of these, but mentioning them just in case...

That's what I have, Hybrid81, I bought a Grand X-1 Refurb. If you have any questions about it, just let me know or send a message. I'm very happy with it, though I don't have any experience with the particular speakers you purchased so I can't speak to the specific combo you'd be creating.

I've never owned a Decco65, but from looking at the description page it seems similar in that it's an all-in-one box. What I like about the Grand X-1 is that it has really nice build quality, just feels and looks great. It has truckloads of power. It has a great DAC based on the ESS9018 chip. Their USB implementation is fantastic, asynch with galvanic isolation and XMOS chip - if people could hear the sound I'm getting just running a $10 Belkin USB from my computer to the Grand, there'd be a lot less criticism of USB as a transfer medium.

The X-1 has a nicer tube buffer than the Decco, though I don't use it a lot. If I have a crap recording I'll turn it on, like a couple of days ago I put on some early Pat Benatar which was just a lousy recording, really thin-sounding and strident. I turned on the buffer for that, and it softens the highs and makes it a little warmer and more listenable. But I don't use it a lot because the amp has a nice neutral sound on its own - it's not cold or bright sounding and doesn't need tube "help". If the recording is nice, the music comes out nice.

If you like the excitement of buying separates, and creating the whole combination yourself, you wouldn't buy one. But that's what I was after - one box that made it simple. My system couldn't be easier - computer to Grand X-1 to speakers, that's it.

Best compliment I can pay the X-1 is that I also have an Audio Research VSi55 integrated, and I struggle to tell them apart, other than that the X-1 can play a lot louder.

Objectively, though, at this price level of $3K I don't think you'll make a bad decision. Whether it's the Grand, or a Hegel, or something from Rogue, or W4S or Bel Canto, I don't know that there are any bad answers here. Lots of great choices, I'm sure you'll end up happy.