new to me turntable and preamp

I bought a Pro-ject Expression III from Underwood Hifi along with a Phono box II as a starter and it worked out great. I've since upgraded the cartridge and Phono stage.

Get an old Thorens if you can find one in decent shape. I just got my hands on an old one-owner TD150 mkII and it sounds better than most of the new models out now costing up to about $1000. Really really surprised at how good this old thing sounds.

Made a deal with the guy selling the NAD 533, so should be a good start, now I just need to find the right pre and I'll be all set. Picked up some nice records in Philly last time I was there and I'm saving these two sealed Japanese pressings for the special occasion.

And Zen, there must be something to those bellaris, those things go like hotcakes on saturday morning.

Oh, and I did adjust and tighten the screws on my cartridge saturday night, not sure if it should have made a difference, but I had no chirping noises even after 2-3 hours of playtime. go figure...

03-16-09: Csw77777
And Zen, there must be something to those bellaris, those things go like hotcakes on saturday morning.

If you go with the Bellari, make sure you get a cartridge of fairly high output. For example, the Denon DL-110 would be borderline too low, but the Ortofon 2M Red or Blue should be just right.

BTW, since you were originally going to replace your Yamaha receiver, let me put in a word for the stupid-good Onkyo A-9555 integrated amp. It lists at $799 and puts out about 85/170 wpc into 8/4 ohms. If you shop around you should be able to find it for under $500. Try B&H, J&R, and Amazon for deals.

Here's the best part: it comes with a really good MM phono stage. For the past 7 months I was using the Cambridge Audio 640p phono stage into the Onkyo. It's a $189 outboard phono unit. A couple weeks ago on a whim I decided to try the Onkyo's built-in phono stage and overall, it's better. The Cambridge *may* have a tad more slam (but I'm not sure, and it's not by much), but the Onkyo phono input is loads better in richness, ambience, inner detail, and resolving "microdynamics." Between the two, the Onkyo has the more captivating and involving presentation.

So it's pretty hard to beat--a fairly powerful, very fast, resolving, high current amp with variable gain line stage, and a better built-in phono preamp than most outboards under $300. In fact, another owner (in another thread) liked his Onkyo phono stage better than a Bellari. The amp should be a good match for the Linns--this Onkyo set a new paradigm for bass resolution and clarity in my home systems.

The only caveats: you need banana plugs, bare wire, or pins at the amp end of your speaker cables, and the Onkyo needs 100 hours of break-in to sound right.

thanks for the suggestion johnny, but i got to hold off a bit on the reciever - think my wife might go crazy if i mentioned another new audio component right now, but i'll keep it in mind when i'm ready.

...reading up on the bellari, seems some have problems with the humming, but this is something that has been cleared up???
and has anyone else tried the parasound?