Turntables.....A point of diminishing returns?

@audioguy85,

My sister has the Pro-Ject Classic (cherry finish) and she loves it. She needed something to play her vinyl from her student days and started off with the decent Pro-Ject basic.

She did have some hum issues with the original leads but swapping them over fixed it.

I can’t see her ever upgrading from that - knowing her sense of aesthetics. It is a great looking deck and goes well with wooden furniture.

I saw a Facebook feed about ridiculous things rich people spend money on. The most appalling was loo-roll made of gold leaf worth $1.3 million dollars.
Put the £650k into context and it is not so ludicrous.Not sure if they make that £650k version, but the technology was used to design their tonearm which I think is perhaps the greatest contributor to the sound. It has active parallel tracking - its about £30k - not cheap. That said it is better VFM than either an SAT arm or the top of the range Vertere.
Think on this - value  and price is wholly relative to means. 

@mijostyn has written an excellent post I must say. I think silly money cartridges are exactly that. Better performance can be had with money being spent elsewhere - subs, room treatment... I heard an all kondo set up from cartridge - tonearm wires all the way to speaker internal cables. I was utterly unimpressed by the sound - very coloured with a golden sheen throughout - throwing money at a problem ain't always the solution.

@petg60i

It's a hobby for some
it's a sense of ownership for some 
its a competition or technical improvement as hobby for some.
it's experimental journey for some 

what is the aim for owning and upgrading  the system is quite important. do you have friends and mentors who knows how to play it know hat they doing . or just depend on reviews and suppliers. that will somewhat determine the way your approach the system.

going all out can be very frustration. say Wilson. magico. focal utopia. that's a difficult difficult speaker to match and get it right in a room. do you have a good room? Will you build a good electrical system? do you have good peers that have excellent knowledge to advise on investments.. this 3 speakers for example are natoriously difficult. money room mind and friends have to be ready in order to work. easily in the 500k region. 

But the most value for money for a high end could be kharma s7s with zesto prepower phono or goldmund. relatively very easy and can do all things. less than 100k. very difficult to beat price performance in high end. relatively much much easier to hit peak performance. going higher not necessarily better or easier. to hit the 500k mark performance the model is veyron kharma. I like this system best. can do every thing very well. easy to drive. easy to get the performance. 

at that level room is very important.. first the room. 

or must must know what speakers works with the room. that's the best approach. and mix it well. all system have magic combo.... find that out. eg zesto kharma. Wilson McIntosh. then the front end is whatever.. 

electrical system. room. setup. matching components all must at a adequate level to hit the optimum performance . and 99 percent of people do not know how to setup speakers. go to a show.. I count maybe less than 5 that's good rest is mediocre. that's the one of important skill and you can't learn it alone and Alot of misunderstanding. no system is bad only bad choices 

can always go for cheap combo style.. then it doesn't hurt if it's not that optimal but still satisfying level. many roads leads to rome most important things to me is toe tapping music and happy. 

About $2k.