Tier M · Silent Path (mandate)
The quietest route from groove to room, hunting hiss and hum out of the system.
One certified system per brief. Costs appear only as signed percentages against each tier’s (unpublished) baseline; absolute prices are not shown.
The certified system
| Slot | Component |
|---|---|
| Turntable | Vertere DG-X Sabre Lite Pack |
| Tonearm | Vertere Groove Runner X |
| Cartridge | Goldring Eroica HX MC |
| Phono stage | Whest Audio 60Se Pro |
| Preamplifier | Music First Audio Baby Reference V2 |
| Power amplifier | Quad Artera Stereo |
| Loudspeakers | Epos ES-7N |
| Subwoofer | KEF KF92 |
| Whole-system cost vs tier baseline | +16.3% |
Amplification: preamplifier and power amplifier — an outcome of the search, not a requirement.
How the money is shaped
How the budget is shaped here — each share is the portion of the whole build this brief aims at that position. A position marked free is left to find its own level. Where a free position shows a minimum, the brief sets no target for it but will not let it be starved: it must take at least that share of the build.
| Position | Share of build |
|---|---|
| Cartridge | 1.8% |
| Tonearm | 5.5% |
| Turntable | 29.1% |
| Phono stage | 45.5% |
| Preamplifier | 13.2% |
| Power amplifier | 5.0% |
| Loudspeakers | free· at least 3.8% |
Why there is a subwoofer
A subwoofer is fitted. Below this loudspeaker’s natural reach there is real musical content — organ pedal notes, synth bass, the lowest drum weight — and the coverage arithmetic says a dedicated bass cabinet genuinely extends the system rather than doubling what the loudspeaker already does.