How to upgrade my system for $1500 or less?? Need advice...

None of your vintage things have a phono stage built in?  Or do you want a better one?  I do not know how good the headphone amps in those receivers are.  Models vary.  Perhaps you could share?  What is lacking?  Tell us what type of music you listen to.  How are the Grados?  Good?  Want to try something different, or are they a dream come true?  This background will help you establish what to upgrade.

Option two is send the money to me.  That will upgrade your karma, and I hear good karma produces a much cleaner sound with much better staging and more clarity throughout the entire spectrum.

-Nkk

You're more likely to get the information you need in the dedicated amplifiers forum. There's heaps of stuff there.

A vintage Marantz receiver from the 70's would be a nice addition, say a 22XX receiver. For example I love my Marantz 2238B.

First of all I would sell your gs1000's and get a set of ps1000's, lcd-2's, hd800's or he-6's.

This will make by far the biggest difference.

I would then suggest you sell one or two of those receivers as really you can't use all of them.

I would also sell your turntables and invest in something like a technics sp10 or sl1210 with a decent tone arm and something like a dl103r.

Unless they are decent turntables in which case I would keep one and add a decent tonearm and cartridge.

This plus a decent phono stage should sound great.

Personally I recently sold my entire vinyl rig as I decided there was too many downsides to it (record wear, needle wear, more expensive than cd's, very expensive, decent digital system competed very well)

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrarroyo 

A vintage Marantz receiver from the 70's would be a nice addition, say a 22XX receiver. For example I love my Marantz 2238B.

Very nice, OP some vintage  receiver's are better or equal to today's headphone amps. I'd trade the GS1000 for Ultrasone 8's and than buy a Luxman headphone amp if you didnt want to go vintage.