I was trying to use contrast to make my point, which was that your system, and your listening preferences and priorities as you describe them, REQUIRE you to have an analog rig. Or as you correctly put it, you and your system are better tailored toward vinyl. I'm sorry that my comment was confusing in this regard. And there is nothing wrong with your speakers - they are excellent and the Beryllium tweeter in particular is superb (I might choose something else if rock were what I usually listen to, but your speakers do rock well and are very well balanced performers, balance being generally the best way to go).
Addressing your immediately prior post, the VPI Scout is a good table, if expensive for what it is. The Scout is more table than the Regas, but requires expert set-up. I myself run a VPI Aries, VPI 10.5 arm, and van den Hul Frog cartridge (all set up and dialed in by Peter Ledermann, a/k/a the Soundsmith). I also have a sixteen year-old Rega Planar 3 with a Grado Sonata cartridge on it. My main analog rig does not constitute elite equipment, but it's set up properly and sits on a custom shelf.
Generally speaking, moving-magnet phono stages require a moving-magnet cartridge or high output moving-coil cartridge, both of which put out a relatively high amount of voltage. You can't run a regular (low-output) moving-coil cartridge with them, as the signal off the cartridge is not strong enough. Conversely, you generally can't run a moving-magnet cartridge or high-output moving coil cartridge with a moving-coil phono stage, as MC phono stages are made to amplify the tiny voltages put out by low-output cartridges and will overload if hooked up to a high-output cartridge.
There is one additional item that I would like to correct from my initial post. In response to the first of your five questions, I concluded by writing, "In summary, if you have a modern table that has been carefully set up and you have properly cleaned the LP, noise is not the issue just as with CDs, the quality of the recording, not the medium (whether LP or CD), becomes the issue." I did not mean to give digital, or more accurately, PCM digital, that much credit - I meant to write that, under those circumstances, noise is no more of an issue with analog than it is with CD, i.e., just as with CD, noise is not an issue. I did not intend to write that PCM digital, as a medium, is fine and that the only issue is the recording. I do not want to reignite the old digital-versus-analog debate, but perhaps, given the thread's subject, it is appropriate for me to share my experience, which was summarized quite well by a prominent audio writer recently. Analog to my ears is a medium that is fundamentally pure and accurate to the source, but that has the occasional pimple (ticks and pops) on its otherwise perfect face. On the other hand, digital is fundamentally and thoroughly flawed to my ears - it's like a milkshake that was made with bad milk or a sausage made from bad meat inasmuch as the problem is thoroughly mixed in and indivisible from the whole - no matter that you take a tiny taste or consume three-quarters of it, the bad taste is everywhere. In my experience, only a small handful of top digital rigs (Playback Designs, AMR, Meitner) make it sound truly good. I've gone from Levinson separates to an Audio Research single-box and now to a $1,500 Chinese player - it's hard for me to justify spending a lot of money on the medium (and yes, I have a lot of CD's).
Addressing your immediately prior post, the VPI Scout is a good table, if expensive for what it is. The Scout is more table than the Regas, but requires expert set-up. I myself run a VPI Aries, VPI 10.5 arm, and van den Hul Frog cartridge (all set up and dialed in by Peter Ledermann, a/k/a the Soundsmith). I also have a sixteen year-old Rega Planar 3 with a Grado Sonata cartridge on it. My main analog rig does not constitute elite equipment, but it's set up properly and sits on a custom shelf.
Generally speaking, moving-magnet phono stages require a moving-magnet cartridge or high output moving-coil cartridge, both of which put out a relatively high amount of voltage. You can't run a regular (low-output) moving-coil cartridge with them, as the signal off the cartridge is not strong enough. Conversely, you generally can't run a moving-magnet cartridge or high-output moving coil cartridge with a moving-coil phono stage, as MC phono stages are made to amplify the tiny voltages put out by low-output cartridges and will overload if hooked up to a high-output cartridge.
There is one additional item that I would like to correct from my initial post. In response to the first of your five questions, I concluded by writing, "In summary, if you have a modern table that has been carefully set up and you have properly cleaned the LP, noise is not the issue just as with CDs, the quality of the recording, not the medium (whether LP or CD), becomes the issue." I did not mean to give digital, or more accurately, PCM digital, that much credit - I meant to write that, under those circumstances, noise is no more of an issue with analog than it is with CD, i.e., just as with CD, noise is not an issue. I did not intend to write that PCM digital, as a medium, is fine and that the only issue is the recording. I do not want to reignite the old digital-versus-analog debate, but perhaps, given the thread's subject, it is appropriate for me to share my experience, which was summarized quite well by a prominent audio writer recently. Analog to my ears is a medium that is fundamentally pure and accurate to the source, but that has the occasional pimple (ticks and pops) on its otherwise perfect face. On the other hand, digital is fundamentally and thoroughly flawed to my ears - it's like a milkshake that was made with bad milk or a sausage made from bad meat inasmuch as the problem is thoroughly mixed in and indivisible from the whole - no matter that you take a tiny taste or consume three-quarters of it, the bad taste is everywhere. In my experience, only a small handful of top digital rigs (Playback Designs, AMR, Meitner) make it sound truly good. I've gone from Levinson separates to an Audio Research single-box and now to a $1,500 Chinese player - it's hard for me to justify spending a lot of money on the medium (and yes, I have a lot of CD's).