Do I buy an upscale TT?

@Mglik

You have had some good advice from colleagues above.

I would like to add that what you heard was a total system, including room dynamics, acoustics. Please do not underestimate the impact of room treatment, simple adjustments to your current room (furniture layout, alignment of speakers, sound absorption of curtains / wall sound absorbers etc) will yield surprising results without change of rig.

My friend bought a fully refurbished Garrard 401 with some upgraded parts, with a very nice plinth, fitted with a Groovemaster 12" and an Ortofon SPU Royal GM II.

For some reason he had to go back to his other turntable which was Nottingham Analogue Ace Spacedeck fitted with the same arm and cartridge.

Let's just say the Nottingham Analogue wiped the floor withe the Garrard 401 in everyway possible.

Whilst I understand the nostalgia in owning a Garrard 301 or 401, and for those of you that own and love them fair play to you, but from my experience they cannot compete with more modern well engineered turntables.

To get good sound from a Turntable requires a huge investment. Unless you really want to spend over 50-200k you will never be happy chasing dragons.

sell you turntable like I did and focus on digital and getting a better amp and speakers first. Or buy a Kronos Sparta for about 30k-35 with a good tonearm and get a 20k audionet phono stage with a 10k power supply for it. You will also need Kubla Sosna elation tonearm cables and power cables.
All this will not be perfect but will be a step up from what you heard in your friends room.

@pennfootball71 

Ehat a ridiculous statement! You do not need to spend $50,000 on a turntable to get great sound

I had a cheap starter system that was about 6.5-7k with a Rega planar 6, mofi ultra tracker MM cartridge and a rogue audio phono with NOS tubes all with upgraded power cables from Shunyata Delta V2’s.

The legend Mike Trei helped me align and pick out the cart. So don’t think i did it half ass and do not know what I was doing.

It was a solid 6 out of 10! I realized for me to get to the next level would be more money than my entire system. Good vinyl playback is possible but requires a huge investment to read the record well and extract all the information out! I have a very resolving system and invested more money into my Lampizator and got better results through digital then I could ever afford on vinyl. I heard many 15-20k-25-30k-35k from AMG, Basis, Kuzma & SMS rigs that sound flat or just wrong and off. Most of the good stuff is over 50 grand as he pointed out in his original post. I would say it takes about 100k to really make a statement vinyl rig and 200k for a reference vinyl rig. Kronos is the best I heard. The new Kronos discovery is the only rig I have heard that can beat the best 50k-100k dac’s out there. It also depends on your speakers. If you have british speakers or Sonus Faber or Dynaudio or lower end Focal stuff you don’t need to go as nuts with vinyl since they don’t have the dynamic range of a YG acoustics like I have or a Magico, Rockport Technologies, Stenheim, or newer Wilson Alexx-V or Alexia V or XVX..Best bang per buck a Rega planar 10 with Aphelion 2 cart and a Rega Aura Moving Coil Phono stage. Everything will match impedance levels and set up will be easier without any guesswork to get something solid for about 18k with good synergy.