The whole system needs to be balanced, the whole chain. Great loudspeakers alone, crucial as they are, *can* be limited by the amplifier driving them. To me the critical aspect in a system is balance. One does not have to spend a lot of money these days to get very good sound. And spening a lot of money is not a guarantee for good sound.
Just a few weekends ago I was listening to a friend, who had bought new, very expensive loudspeakers and was enthusiastic about them, but quite clearly his truty old tube integrated amplifier did not have the umph to drive those big things and bring them alive. I prefered the balance of the system he had before, but of course worded it very carefully! The great thing about the SB is that is redefines the classic old 30/30/40 (source/amplifier/loudspeakers) rule. Now one can freely spend more on the amplification and the loudspeakers. Depending on where I'd live, I'd start with the end of the chain. A B&W 805, about $2k for the two of them, may not get the visual cred of hulking floorstanding stuff, but they bring poetic resolution and musicality. There are several others that qualify - Monitor Audio used to make some sweet sounding small speakers, not sure if they still do. Score them used for even less. It's hard to outgrow those things, and when one does one typically stays in the same line and gets a divorce first. :-) With something like the 805, one does not have to spend the money on a lot (and very clean) power to drive the speaker, and there are several beautiful sounding integrated amps in the $1-$2k range that will drive them well. I'd spend $1k on the DA these days, since the crystal ball looks a bit murky about what the future brings there. It think with that you could have a system that sounds as good as (and probably better than most) systems costing $10k+ that are often mismatches due to whatever the salesguy is forced to pimp out of the salesfloor... I am using the DA in (expensive) Accuphase CD player, and the money spent on it was mostly a waste given the fact I listen to stuff via the SB 95% of the time! Things are changing quite a bit in audio. If one's open-minded, it'll be interesting to see where it leads over the next few years. But again - *balance*. Start with what you like and a budget, and allocate it smartly. If I started from scratch, I'd spend 60% of the budget on the loudspeakers, 40% on the amplifying. Then over time I'd add a better DA and (judiciously) the usual quest for cabling and somewhat cleaner power... Like with every good plan, longevity is only guaranteed if one does stuff gradually! -- pablolie ------------------------------------------------------------------------ pablolie's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3816 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=32740 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
