Pretty hip for a newbie!Nice touches for someone just comming in are thge NOS tubes and your lucky you got the Fanfare FM gear.Good tuners are hard to come buy these days unless you go with Magnum Dynalab or with a classic like a McIntosh MR78 (speaking of which when you decide to change your system out of boredom-98% of us diagnosed with "audiophillia Nervoussa" do it you'd dig on the Mac gear) but you also got excellent the Fanffare antenna.Man I saold it (and Mac,Krell,B&W etc) for 6 years and always wondered if the moon landing were faked and this is what we spent the money.Incredible.You might want to add XM tuner as I plan to as well though Fanfare un-needed for it.Your heart of system shows you know quality but are aware of value as well.Mark maks greats tuff at sane prices.Only7 thing I might improve on what's pictured is the rack.I am really partial to Sound Anchors as I am their speaker stands.Nothing beats Heavy Iron.Bob Warzalla knows as much about the speakers he makes stands for soemtimes even more than the manufacturer themselves.But his $1K or so racks and three (or four) post stands are the best around and can make a huge difference especially for those with wood floors.Turntable?I spoke with Makr Obrien about his putting into production a working mock up hybrid with front load and gain but so far he says's the amps are taking up his time and work space.Too bad it looked like a winner at less than $2K.I like VPI tables becauise you can swap arm tubes easily when you want to for different cartridges.Theere are many wonderfull re-issues no mater what music you like and many are availible in mono as well as stereo.There is debate about hwo much the arm verus how much the cartridge and phono ection make.For your system a table like my VPI Aries would be a good match and you'd have to read up,get tips on carts.POS Audio makes a nice $1K phono,Acoustech one for $1500 (CJ EV1 is in that price raneg),$3K Art Auido and a Cary 302 that is in that range up to a plethora of really top flight $$k units (Aesthjetix Rhea,EAR 324,etc.Have fun experimenting with isolation products like inexpensive Vibrapods to pricey BDR pucks.The Gingko shelf is an excellent runtabe platform that performs much like the active vibraplanes originally developed for atomic tunnelling microscopes but at $300 + is 1/4 the price of one.Get Craig detoxit and keep contacts clean etc.What you can get really ritualistic with is LP care.Considering what the original pressings cost a VPI 16.5 vacuum cleaning machine is well worth iot and though I make a home brew solution on it I also use the hideously expensive LAST power cleaner for used LP's that are grimey and especially the LAST preservative.Worth it's insane price and then some.Finally AC.Did you list a surge protector with RFI/EFI filtering?All AC is noisy to one degree or another.But few products astonish as much as AC filtering or regeneration.Con't expect much rom cheapoer units.They are glorified surge protectors.But $1K and above for sources (more if amps are used) and results can be startling.PS Audio is maybe the biggest but by no means the only company to be out there cleaning things up.Check as many on line reviews as possible and ask around.You have a great system and one that seems sure and confident for a person just into the scene.Check out Red Trumpet,Muisc Direct,Acoustic Sounds, for import CD's and vinyl.
As the Aussies say "Good on 'ya"
Chazz
P.S for any type of music use www.amg.com or www.allmuisc.com for reviews for best choices when picking out CD's (or LP) or a particular artist.I used their All Music Guide To Jazz to build a 4K LP collaction.That and more money than I want to remember.
Cheers
Chazz
