Morning, My first system was a Marantz stack PM6005 with Tannoy V4 speakers. At the time it was just a joy to start the journey. Then I moved up to a Cambridge stack CXA81, CXNv2, CXC and the Whafedale Linton’s. I noticed a significant improvement and been very happy for a few years. After a bit of penny pinching I managed to get myself some Qacoustic Concept 500 and these are amazing. No plans to change, my end game speaker. At 4 times the cost of the Linton I now have a dose of the “What Ifs”. I’m wondering if there is enough headroom left in the electronics to see a significant improvement again if I match the speakers value. I’m looking at the Yamaha As3200, Hegel H390 and the Denon A110.
Any opinions on your journey progressing up in value versus sonic improvements would be very welcome.
Or at which value proposition you feel diminishing returns start.
Morning
Last year I’ve got back my old Sony and Jamo speakers, I just wanted to stream so I bought the cheapest Yamaha Integrated. I was happy and I felt like the old Jamo’s need a upgrade. Found a pair of triton 5s, goldenear, I a said it is over with the move from Spotify to tidal. But wait, a pair of subs… a dedicated m1 mini with a roon subscription… And I should have stopped. There were all around same quality/price. But I did upgrade the amp to NAD C298 and it was major SQ upgrade so I bought a cheap dac to go with, CA 200M. But the CM 200M does not have a remote so I was looking for a cheap preamp, but maybe I will need more In connections, and the volume has to be good. I bought the LA4 from benchmark. Now I’ll have to upgrade the dac (Adi dac 2 or benchmark 3 or my heart breaking Holo). And I’ll not stop, the speakers will be below the electronics, so I’m looking at some Dali.
Maybe setting for a stack it is better at stopping the upgrade part by part story. It is hard to mach them sonically and step by step never stop. Yamaha A-S3200 it is superb
As we go up I think it becomes a demand to listen to pieces of gear in our home in our current setup and decide from there. There are too many personal deciding factors. But is good to hear other people stories, and I will not forget about Qacoustic Concept 500
I was not very helpful, maybe someone that has you gear
Kind Regards
Traian
I will start by saying, from now on, I will always choose two monoblocks over a stereo amplifier. For me, it depends upon whether or not you have regularly kept up with technology. I have one system in my home, and it has always been audio/visual. I purchased my first real system back in 1992. It was a 100% Carver system that was five channel Dolby Pro Logic, no .x subwoofer channels. I finally had to upgrade in 2019 because technology left me behind, especially when it came to HDMI. I had so many converters and splitters hanging off the back of the prepro it was ridiculous. I went to Emotiva and purchased an RMC-1 processor, two DR1 monoblock amps, a thirteen channel XPA amplifier for the surround/Atmos/zone 2, two 10” powered subwoofers but still use the thirty-year-old Carver Platinum Loudspeakers. Then I purchased a QNAP NAS for my Roon core, Roon lifetime subscription, subscriptions to Tidal/Qobuz, a Node 2i as my endpoint and a Rega P3 turntable. I am currently sixty years old, so hopefully, if history repeats itself, I should not need another upgrade for another thirty years, I squeezed everything I could out of that first system. All the Carver gear still worked when I boxed it all up and put it in the closet. For thirty years, I was running two stereo TFM-45s in bridged mono for the mains, but what a huge difference the monoblocks made.
Yes I went from valve pre line and phono and valve mono’s separates to a NAD m10. DIRAC is amazing and so is the electricity bill. Tannoy speakers still sound as amazing.
Well I am either going back to my Arcam AvR with one my external DACs and a rock endpoint or going up to the NAD M33 and get rid of my Arcam AvR and Naim Atom all together.
It’s that plus the more neutral nature of the class D in the M33 that’s got my attention. I feel Naims just too forward sounding for my these days my rooms lively, that and I am starting to really think why I have two amps. It might mean loosing surround so I need time to way it all up and I might find my Arcam does the job.
Yeah that’s no good and doesn’t support a centre either. I might give it a look at though although it’s a side step from the Atom and most reviews seem to favour the Naim but that was the v1. If I am going class d I want the better modules that are in the m33.
I love mine, first experience of room correction and it’s really opened my eyes to how good it works on rooms outside of a magazine or internet testers. My tannoys are easy to drive too.
