Turntable got absolutely crushed by CD

@pbnaudio  Unfortunately it doesn't have the pull-out card and 400-500ohms don't seem to be possible. 

@roberjerman thanks, i've never really looked at SUTs before..in fact i thought they were worse than a good phono stage. Guess I'd have to start looking

@rodman99999 Hm i'm actually in Singapore. What's involved in the process of refreshing the internal phono stage and what are the outcomes? To get more loading options?

@whart I agree...if I were starting out today I'm not sure if I'd go down the vinyl route. At this point I've actually spent more on the analog front (turntable+cart+accessories close to USD3K) than my digital (Esoteric USD2.3k) and by the looks of it, I've to spend a lot more (cart/arm/SUT) before the VPI could match the Esoteric?

The same amount invested in digital could probably push the Esoteric even further ahead, eg, adding a word clock generator

It's getting hard for me to be further invested in vinyl but hopefully more tweaking will help me "see the light"

@ kahlenz I too, enjoy vinyl very much for the same reasons so you can imagine my disappointment when I wanted to believe that the Classic would sound better.

Wow thanks for all the advice here.. didn't really expect this much response on this. I only began my vinyl journey a year ago and I'm definitely still learning. Please pardon my ignorance.

With regards to alignment, I've tried to get it as reasonably close to perfect as I can with the supplied jig. VTA is slightly higher due to the bass weight I'm hearing but I don't really see that as being the reason for the huge gap in performance? I've seen somewhere that the jig is not the best. In that case, what should i be looking at for a more accurate alignment?

On the point of a mediocre cart on a mediocre arm.. the ZU-Denon (Mk.1) was mint when I recently bought it. I know the DL103 is far from the best and maybe that wasn't a fair comparison, but will a better cart... like the Dynavector dv xx2 mkii actually push the vinyl setup way ahead of the Esoteric? A cart like that is a significant investment and I fear that even then it still might not match up to the Esoteric...and hence my question on whether anyone has had experiences of comparing high-end digital to high-end analogue? 

I was also under the impression that the JMW 10.5 tonearm was capable enough to take high-end cartridges since I've seen many mounting Lyras and Koetsus on this thing. Am I wrong about this?

The C200L and P600 was restored and recapped when i bought them from HifiDo. I'm thinking the C200L might be the bottleneck here with its in-built phono stage. Yes I'm on the 100ohms loading as the Zu-Denon DL103 mk.1 brochure actually recommended a load of 80 to 200ohms and quite a number of people seem to be on 100ohms too. Coming back to the mention of  Dynavector dv xx2 mkii, maybe that will be a better choice given a recommended >30ohms loading?

@jab Interesting, what was the tonearm/cart on the Linn? I'm guessing you are selling for an upgrade?

Many thanks for all the advice and constructive feedback so far. I'm most likely going to hold on to the turntable for a while and see how much more performance i can extract from further tweaking. 

I'm facing quite a learning curve on the VPI tonearm though. I noticed that the entire tonearm can be rotated laterally, with 2 points where the tonearm seems to snap or click into place. Is this normal? If so, how do I know at which point the tonearm should snap into place?

Also, how fragile is the unipivot male bearing assembly and should I be applying any sort of lubricant/fluid? There is a section on damping fluid around the pivot in the VPI manual.

How about anti-skating? I know the general consensus seems to be a no for VPI arms.

Apologies, I realise I must sound really stupid right now.

Hi @rauliruegas Not too many..at this point i have a little over 50 LPs. Couple of digital reissues, but I do have some early pressings of records from Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac, Dire Straits etc...your usual classic rock stuff