Background: I am a vinyl newbie with maybe 100 LPs (or less) in my collection. I have had a Technics SL1210GAE for past 2 years, I just plugged and played it. It’s good but my digital is almost as good or sometimes better.
I recently heard a SME 30/12A at the dealer’s, and it blew my mind and I for the first time understood what the fuss with analog was all about, and my digital was no where close (the dealer had almost the same digital -- mine is Nagra Tube DAC, his was the Nagra HD DAC -- and we did on spot comparison, not an apples to apple of course but still best that we could under the circumstances).
Given this sound, I can see myself investing in 100s of LPs in the future which I did not do with the Technics TT.
Now given my relative inexperience with vinyl (I know next to nothing about analog setup and I am sure my current table setup is not optimised by any standards), should I plunge for this offer which is offered to me at 1/3rd-ish the retail price and probably an endgame TT for me. Is this as great an offer as I think it is, or are there better TTs (including tonearm of course) at 15K$ retail/street price than the SME 30/12A -- I cannot/will not buy used.
I recently heard a SME 30/12A at the dealer’s, and it blew my mind and I for the first time understood what the fuss with analog was all about, and my digital was no where close (the dealer had almost the same digital -- mine is Nagra Tube DAC, his was the Nagra HD DAC -- and we did on spot comparison, not an apples to apple of course but still best that we could under the circumstances).
Given this sound, I can see myself investing in 100s of LPs in the future which I did not do with the Technics TT.
Now given my relative inexperience with vinyl (I know next to nothing about analog setup and I am sure my current table setup is not optimised by any standards), should I plunge for this offer which is offered to me at 1/3rd-ish the retail price and probably an endgame TT for me. Is this as great an offer as I think it is, or are there better TTs (including tonearm of course) at 15K$ retail/street price than the SME 30/12A -- I cannot/will not buy used.