Hi Folks,

This is moon on a stick question, but i have no idea where to start. I love music, sang (loudly but badly) and played in a band for years, play trombone etc etc, but recently all of my listening has been whilst travelling for work, so through iPhone/pad and decent-ish headphones (bose QC25 or SennH momentums)

My physical, house based, listening is now limited to only a samsung bluetooth thing in the kitchen, and this makes me sad.

I want, for my home office but also occasionally to be moved to family room for parties and whatnot, a system that will bring my digital music to life and just envelope me in loveliness and aural pleasure. I miss that physical connection to music.

I may also get back into vinyl again, so something to connect a turntable to in the future (but out of scope and budget for now).

I’m thinking, and this is NOT my expertise so apologise for wrong words, some kind of DAC/amplifier and a nice pair of speakers to turn digital into sound wave gorgeousness?

Maybe £1000 as a starting budget?

Had a quick look at Linn for a laugh, and my perfect compact-ish system aparently costs around £14K – shite!

Not mad keen on Sonos/B&W/Bose and the like, don’t need fancy streaming – I want something proper again.

Any thoughts from you lovely people?

ta muchly.

Portable? Sorted…

If the source is your digital library you are limited to a degree as the songs are ripped in a lower quality format. IMHO is that’s the source then spending £1000 is way too much.

Second-hand Naim? Don’t lose much value, which reminds me, I’ve just upgraded and have a CD player and preamp I need to put on Ebay.

What you want want is an Arcam CD player and an Audiolab 8000A amp and a set of B&W DM603 speakers*

This advice might be 20 years out of date

Plenty of LINN things out there that could be pieced together for £1000.

To be honest, though, you might find the convenience of a Naim Mu-So rather appealing… http://www.johnlewis.com/naim-mu-so-digital-wireless-bluetooth-music-system-with-apple-airplay/p1713628

Rachel

What you want want is an Arcam CD player and an Audiolab 8000A amp and a set of B&W DM603 speakers*

I have an Arcam CD player, Arcam integrated amp and Arcam power amp plus B&W DM603 speakers. They were great 20 years ago and still make some noise now 🙂

I have an Arcam Alpha+ with Audiolab 8000a with B&W P4’s and it sounds pretty good. Mainly stream FLAC files though from a Squeezebox Touch and Audiolab MDAC. In the process of upgrading at the moment. Just ordered a Clearaudio Concept Turntable to replace my Logic Tempo. Most stuff is 25+ years old.

I want, for my home office but also occasionally to be moved to family room for parties and whatnot, a system that will bring my digital music to life and just envelope me in loveliness and aural pleasure. I miss that physical connection to music.

I may also get back into vinyl again, so something to connect a turntable to in the future (but out of scope and budget for now).

A relatively cheap, occasionally portable and very decent sounding system is what i have,

Cambridge Audio Dac Magic Plus (£300ish) with all the inputs you could possibly need, a pair of KRK Rokit 5 active monitors (£250ish) and a KRK RP10S active Subwoofer (£300ish) which sits under my desk for the occasions when i want to rearrange my internal organs

Muffin man – it’s not even a double tape deck. Pfft! 🙂

Thanks all, I know that my iTunes collection (inc all my ripped CDs) is not going to be an audiophile quality listen, but I should be able to push it through and amp and some nice speakers to really envelop me in loveliness.

Appreciate the advice on the Naim, but having bought an ‘ i ‘ specific Bose sound dock many years ago, and before that some creative labs stuff, I want some thing more ‘analogue’. I know that sounds weird, but when that stuff breaks, you are basically buttered and it’s also obsolete quite fast. I am, secretly, also a neo-Luddite.

Somafunk – that’s possibly closer to what I am looking for, I guess it used to be called ‘separates’?

Any more idea to chew on would be great, this really is new territory for me.

Cheers!

Seperates tends to mean anything that wasn’t actually sold as a single purchased unit.

Seeing as you know how live music sounds, I’d suggest you find a place where you can demo some decent kit, new or secondhand, and have a listen. The differences can be very subtle or utterly unmissable, but you should be able to figure out what you like 🙂

We’ll rustle up some suggestions, I’m sure.

Meanwhile, I think you could do with some background research, and an introduction to key technologies etc.

Maybe start by reading some overviews published by What HiFi, and if you can find any articles of interest published by HiFi World (UK) they’re usually really knowledgeable (but are less often aimed at n00bs).

In your case, your knowledgeable ears give you an advantage!

Yamaha have an interesting looking range of ‘network’ receivers. Old school hi-fi separate looks, phono amp, internal DAC so digital inputs but will also steam from a PC, or Airplay from Apple devices and deals with Spotify and the like as well.

Spend the rest of the money on a really nice set of speakers.

might be 20 years out of date

I have my NAD amp from 1987 ready to put back to work, it probably needs all sorts of complicated connectors to get a signal into it 😳

it probably needs all sorts of complicated connectors new electrolytic capacitors

Have I it Un-FIFY? :/

I went past PJ Audio in Guildford the other day and they had a ‘budget’ system suggestion in the window. HiFi shops used to do this a lot when I was a student – NAD 3020a amp, Dual 505 turntable and Mission 70s or AR somethings.

I think for guaranteed loveliness of sound you are looking at a decent tube amp I reckon. Icon Audio used to do cheaper amps but they are all maxing your budget or above.

And the used to be the Affordable Valve Company as well but they seem to be missing now.

I had a Rogers E40a tube amp and it was something special but the transformer hummed so I go rid, and it has proved to be expensive to get a more pleasing sound through solid state.

For that money maybe look for some of the places that do vintage gear and get them to set you up a system.

A Quad 606 mk II or above and a passive pre-amp is another option, but the tube amp will probably be sweeter and more likely to meet the requirement to “just envelope me in loveliness and aural pleasure”.

And I have never heard an Audiolab I like, although apparently their 8000M amps are good.

Soe Kef 105s on ebay – might not fit with the requirement to move them between rooms :

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Rare-Kef-Model-105-Series-2-Hifi-Speakers-Vintage-Classic-High-End-Audio-Fronts-/121937104488?hash=item1c64048e68:g:EvYAAOSw9uFW-Czw

There were some Epos Es14s for really low money on there as well.

At what point do I introduce the ‘spousal approval factor’? Those are f’ing awesome! Look like Blakes 7 set pieces.

Yamaha AS501 (DAC, phono, optical)
Decent CD player
Project essential II phono
Dali Zensor 3
Synology 115j NAS
Chromecast audio with optical. Or Yamaha CDN301 Networked CD.

All new came in about a grand. Am no audiophile but the Zensor 3 are amazing.

new electrolytic capacitors

My Kenwood 3020SE has now got a noticable buzz – not from the speakers but from the amp itself. It could be that I’ve just never noticed it before but it’s now installed at ear level on my left when I’m sitting at my desk. Any clues?

needs nw caps… probably power supply smoothing ones.

(I’m guessing a bit).

If you’ve got a richer sounds nearby it’s worth dropping in and having a chat to them. They usually have a load of separates set up for a listen I think although it’s been years since I went into one. The Cambridge Audio and Denon stuff they sold me refuses to die

You could probably test that by putting a digital multimeter, set to AC, across the PSU caps. More than a few mV would be a bad sign.

The Audiolab sold by the boatload and I still like mine but I have had a listen to a Naim XS2 recently and have to admit it’s in a different league.

The Audiolab sold by the boatload

pushed hard by the hifi press.

My first demo had a lowly Quad 34/306 and I pitched it against an 8000a which was no contest, although it should easily have been the Audiolab according to the press of the time. I then tried the 8000C and 8000P but the Quads were still much nicer.

I would make a guess though that the power amps might be OK and it’s just the pre-amps – the amount most pre-amps crucify the signal is a lot. I now have a TVC ‘passive’ one and it is superb.

If you’ve got a richer sounds nearby it’s worth dropping in and having a chat to them

I was getting my hair cut the other month and some old guy came in and was talking about the £80 HDMI cable Richer Sounds had sold him…

Richer Sounds own a lot of the brands they push – it always seemed to me that they would get the brand to sell, go exclusive and sell them cheap, and then take them over.

Definitely not a fan.

Oh come on no one so far?
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxQqWSnsHoA[/video]

Maybe less fancy than what you are looking at but the Marantz pm6005 would be worth a look. Decent amp, on board dac and a phono stage. Would leave plenty room in the budget for speakers you like and a turntable like a project debut or such. Not portable though but you might still have something left to put towards maybe some home cinema kit for the family room.

I sold some Audiolab 8000s and p pre and power amps a few months ago fir some Arcam Alpha 10 pre and power amps. Arcams hit harder but lost a lot of subtlety imo.

No using a Creek Evolution 50 amp ( integrated amp) and its absolutely superb.

The PM6005 is a quality amp for the money.
Go to a dealer and listen to a few options, narrowing down kit one at a time. Take music you like as well!

I went in fully expecting to want a £400 Rotel amp and came out with the Marantz at a much lower price. It wasn’t as good with dnb and trance stuff but had way better musicality for 95% of what we listen to regularly.

Cyrus 8 DAC integrated? Love mine.

The Cambridge Audio CXN network player has had very good reviews, factor in £300 for a set of decent active speakers and you’ve got a very portable system that can deal with everything you throw at it

Cambridge Audio CXN Network here

Musical Fidelity DAC, Quad 303 pre amp with 404 monoblocks.. Castle floorstanders..

Not very portable but proper sound

Get along to a good shop if you can. I had certain things in mind after reading reviews but that all went out the window once I’d listened to some different speakers. I couldn’t tell any difference between the amps but there were only two in my budget and the marantz I bought has been excellent.

All great input, thanks folks, really apprecaited.

My goodness, amp/speaker/preamp reviews are worse than bike review for eloquent cliches – whats the audiofile equivalent of ‘Laterally stiff, vertically compliant’? 🙂

Gawd, now I’ve started googling valve amps…

I went on a similar mission, if you search my profile you will find threads where I’ve asked questions over the last few years.

I buy used/vintage stuff. It’s really affordable (I bought a Cyrus one as my first decent amp for £115 from a dealer that is amazing) and you can experiment. Yes it can be fraught with faults but the old stuff can be fixed and also improved. Also if you buy sensibly you will not lose cash if you sell on.

I’ve always liked hifi but in all the years I’ve never had stuff that sounds as lovely as what I’m playing with now.

currently I have rega planar 3/rb300 turntable. Quad 44/405-2 pre/power amp. Celestion 44 speakers. Chord cobra connectors and diy power chords. All up maybe 700quid.

Toss up at present is whether to upgrade my planar with the improved motor and a better cartridge, or sell it plus the other two nice vintage decks I’ve bought (too cheap not to) and throw all the cash into a linn sondek lp12.