Nice. I always love it when someone gets a new table, and I love it even more where there is a reference! Our choices are 'usually' subjective and, in my opinion, it's usually something like 'I like listening to this more than that'. Your opinion matters to me because you have experience with tables that I may or may not have experienced. I'm not questioning your judgements, but I find it curious that you would prefer the debut over the expression. But these are real world experiences and it matters to me, which tables you prefer! Thanks for taking the time!
Don
P.S. I realize now that you weren't ranking the tables, but listing them!
I owned the Debut III about 10 years ago in a different system in a different house, I had B&W DM308 speakers and an older Harmon Kardon amp and it seemed to work quite nicely in that system.
In contrast I very recently auditioned the 1Expression Carbon Classic with a pair of Monitor Audio RX6 speakers and I was comparing directly to an RP3 and the RP40.
So I enjoyed the Debut II in comparison to turntables I had previously experienced (over 10 years ago) and I still quite liked the 1Expression but I preferred the two Regas by quite a large margin.
I think if I stacked the Debut III up against the 1Expression now, I would probably prefer the 1 Expression.
I think the one of the main reasons that I prefered the RP40 to the 1Expression was that I heard some inner groove distortion on the 1Expression that was absent on the RP3 and the RP40, also there was some sibilance on the 1Expression which was similarly absent on the RP40 and RP3.
Because I had done quite a lot of research on the 1Expression and the RP3/40 I had started to obsess about the 8.6 inch short tonearm on the Project.
I don't know if the slightly shorter tonearm really has any material effect on the sound but it became a "thing" in my head which may have coloured my listening experience.
The dealer kindly let me take home a demo RP3 fitted with a 2M blue and no TT PSU for a few days, my wife and I loved it.
I went back and listened to it back to back against the RP40 which has the TT PSU. I can't explain it, but the TT PSU really increases the depth of the sound stage by a huge amount. So I got the RP40.
I am thinking the next step will be to replace the Elys 40 with either the 2M Blue or Bronze, or possibly my Denon DL300. But this will be someway further down the track as I am still very much enjoying it with the Elys 40.
