Possible purchase of the first turntable


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 ?

marco777

Why is it “theoretically crazy” to have both a digital and an analog system?  Most people here probably do both

Why is it “theoretically crazy” to have both a digital and an analog system?  becouse don't have any vinyl disks, and today vinyl disks are not cheap. 

To be honest I have also stopped to listen CD becouse I have ripped all of them and now I puchare most FLAC at 24/96 o 192 Khz. But different mastars are affected to lowdness war that I hate so much.

you can buy used vinyl in bulk. half of my collection is $1 LPs and most of them are fine.

I discovered something I didn’t know: many vinyl records from 1990 to 2015 are either unavailable for purchase or very rare. I didn’t know this; this fact alone means I can’t afford an analog source.