Frustrated with Vinly

"@jay73,. I for one really appreciate your last post (especially). You’re kind of rare in that while seeking advice and absorbing it, you’re willing to stay involved. I wish you all the best in your search."

I was thinking the same thing Slaw. It shouldn't  go unoticed or without kudos as rare as it is.....

I think I hear a slight positive difference in the sound but not sure yet

Be careful with "upgrades" for the sake of it. And beware of fooling yourself with confirmation bias.

@slaw and @has2be, Thanks for your kind words!

@noromance ,

I completely agree with you, time will tell if there really is a difference in sound quality. Another reason I picked up the Isotek was because I had really entry lever power strips and wanted to get something a little more substantial to protect the gear.

I'm following this interesting thread, I have a sophisticated digital rig and sounds amazing but some source content, specifically rock tends to sound for lack of a better word out of sync, jazz, acoustic, salsa, americana, folk, vocals all good, rock and roll not so much.
I thought initially it was the recordings and the recording engineers but the thing with digital is it is very sensitive to changes in power supply, filters, even software, I am constantly tweaking and got to the point I need a reference and I decided vinyl could be the way (I have spoken ;)
Anyway I have a technics mk5 I think with a dl301 cartridge, would that be an acceptably rig or should I go something more modern? Like the 1200 or other manufacturer? Don't want to spend much either, I am at my limits already.

Tube pre with phono stage and tube monoblocks

By the way if I use the technics I need to figure out a balanced cable instead of the existing single ended, maybe I will need to change the tonearm.

I know I know all cartridges are inherently balanced maybe instead of a complete tonearm just need to wire the existing one. I rather stay away from an isolation transformer for this.

Jay, forget vinyl. When I visited NYC last year, I purchased like 20 expensive brand new 180g jazz LPs.Two of them being 45rpm LPs. When I started to listen to them....pure frustration!!!. Some of them, out of the sealed cover, already showed a few pops and clicks right away.Quite irritating and a waste of money. Listening to vinyl in this century is absolutely ridiculous. Long live the well recorded CDs !!!! By the way : I own a very good high end system, which makes listening to vinyl a real torture. Don't waste your time and money with "cleaning" devices. I have tried several "techniques". You may mitigate it, but bear in mind that noise from vinyl is non-removable !!! Good luck..