What would you upgrade next?

Hello fellow vinyl fans. It's that upgrade time where you get an itch to upgrade your gear. I currently have a Clearaudio Performance SE with a Carbon Satisfy Arm and a Clearaudion Stradivari V2 Cartridge. For a Phonostage I have the Anologica by Red Wine Audio. I am running it all through the Van Alstine Vision DAC Pre-Amp and a 600R Amp also by Van Alstine. My speakers are the Salk Sound Scape 8's. I have returned to Vinyl in the last 2 years and have been loving it! I am looking for some ideas on the next logical upgrade. I recently auditioned an Andros 1.2 Phonostage, and am considering this as my next upgrade. I was not immediately taken by it in comparison to the Analogica. It does sound more open and slightly more detailed, but I am not sure if this is where I should be putting my money right now? Curious to see what the rest of the community thinks on the next most logical upgrade? A new table is certainly in my mind for the near future, so do I upgrade the Phonostage now or save my money, wait a while, and spend it on a nicer table? Your recommendations are appreciated.

 

You have a pretty kick-ass system as is, and I understand the desire to upgrade, but you seem to be happy. If it were me I would save my money for that new table you mentioned and then address the phono pre. IMO it should be the last piece in the puzzle for maximizing the sound from your vinyl front-end. YMMV.

 

A power conditioner might give you an upgrade.

 

With that system I am surprised you have the itch to upgrade !
I don't any of your components that well, but source (turntable) first always
make sense to me.

 

I have gotten off this upgrade wagon for now. I am finding that I cannot discern better, from just different anymore and I am not really interested in the Optometrist routine of, "is 1 better that 2", ( 3 better than 2". I am finding now that most of my listening is vinyl or 2496 that I am enjoying my digital music more, but still listen to the CDs I own and can enjoy them, but I know better that they are not "perfect sound forever" and even though they were marketed that way. I have bought and played some 24/192 downloads and find them only very, slightly better than 2496 and I can burn the 2496 files to DVDs which is a big thing to me. I still also buy SACDS of things I like and really like the sound of all I own.

I could up grade the carts on my 3 TTs, but since I can't really afford to really upgrade my phono stage to something much, much better, I don't see the point to it when I find what I have enjoyable, which is the point. I would rather buy more music than gear at this point.

In my working with my Yamaha MG16/XU with its built it 24/192 ubs ADC/DAC I am finding latency issues at 24/192 that are problematic and i have not been able to solve, but it may be my old Win 7 1.3ghz dual core computer more than anything else. When they play the 24/192 files sound great. I have less dropouts with redbook and 2496 files, but messing with the latency settings is not solving the problem. I may also have stuff secretly running in the background hogging CPU time, but it still sounds way better than my stock sound card and I don't record in my computer anymore as that is what my 3 Tascam SDHC card recorders are for and they have never failed me at 2496.

The suggestion of a power conditioner might be a good one for my recording set up. The addition of an MIT powercord years ago was a big help.

Just bought the lastest SoundKeeper recordings release at 2496 and look forward to more great recordings from Barry.