Good morning everyone,
I have the following systems:
Source: Marantz SACD 30n
Amp: Arcam FMJ A32
Speakers: Self-built
The Marantz SACD 30n player, I bought it recently as an upgrade from an old Marantz NA8005 player.
When lately I did various listens between speakers and amplifiers, I noticed as I already knew that as the price goes up, the improvements start to feel exponentially less and less.
I think now that we have reached a point where spending double or triple to feel differences happens to change not a single component but at least two, this means that by now there are obvious bottlenecks.
I am convinced that in my case the bottlenecks are 3:
1) Listening environment not acoustically treated and location of speakers with tradeoffs although acceptable
2) Digital masters are sometimes of lower quality than analog vinyl (or vice versa)
3) Digital sound despite its superiority, lacks that touch of naturalness that distinguishes analog. There is no real winner
Even spending several tens of thousands of euros, there would always be these trade-offs that alone would make it almost pointless to even spend crazy figures.
Then I thought a theoretically crazy thing:
Why do I necessarily have to choose between owning digital and analog ? Can't you have both?
Making some rough estimates, a figure came out not recently that may not be enough.
The basic idea is to have two sources: a digital (like my Marantz SACD 30n of which I am very satisfied) and an analogue not of inferior quality but equivalent, to be used in a complementary way and not in replacement.
To the cost of the analog source I should also add the purchase of discs since I practically do not have and therefore at least fifty should buy them as a minimum.
To try to equalize in qualitative terms Marantz thought of something like:
//
Turntables: Technics SL-1300G
Cartridge: Nagaoka MP-500
Pre-Phono: Musical Fidelity MX-VYNL
//
To save money, I'll buy it at the used market, but one piece at a time when I get the right opportunity, I'm not in a hurry.
But I have some doubts that a source of this type can not compete with the Marantz SACD 30n that costs 3000 Euros and has a sound very close to a vinyl, even being digital.
The last time I listened to a vinyl was over 30 years ago was the famous Technics SL-1200 of that era, so I do not know how much it takes economically to have an analog source of a certain level to human figures.
The question is: is it right for me to go this way ? or not because to get what I'm looking for I should spend more and not less ?
What do you think ?
