Great post, Corey!
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I have two Vidars run as monoblocks. You can use one in stereo mode. It will put out 100 wpc, which is plenty for a small to medium room and efficient speakers. Can’t beat the price; a good value. Most of the controversy swirling around Schiit concerns their DACs.
For now I am satisfied with the Vidars, but I will probably go with a PrimaLuna tube amp at 70 wpc. I have a PrimaLuna pre-amp, which is the best buying choice I’ve made, so far.
My speakers are GoldenEar Triton Fives. Soon to become Trtiton 1.R’s, maybe. Definitely up for a speaker upgrade. I know I like GoldenEars, but there are other choices. Speaker selection is fraught will peril.
I have a iFi Pro iDSD DAC, which is generally well thought of, but if you have a budget of between $2-3000 then that DAC will eat most of that. Your Marantz will work as a DAC and pre-amp just as well.
A good place to window shop is this site, as long as you take the opinions with a grain of salt -
FWIW,. Have fun. 
BTW- that picture you posted from the Schiit site is the most depressing room I’ve seen in this forum.
My thoughts on digital music, the dac and music server feeding said dac, are the two foundations of quality listening, especially and not exclusive to head phone listening. Solutions range from 5 to 50 G . I use roon dsp but others like hqp. I don’t stream tho, I’m old school ssd drive guy from my server.
I’ve been at this for 20+ years. Suggest:
- Right speaker for your room and music taste
- Best speaker placement/DSP you can practically manage (this is free with Roon)
- Amp
- DAC
I have multiple rooms set up… one runs on a NAD receiver another on a benchmark dac and hypex amps. I have several DIY speakers and a pair of Magnepans that I swap around by mood. I also tried/owned lots of products… marantz, Yamaha, denon, rotel, NAD, bryston, B&W, and many that no longer exist.
On receivers, I’ve found the amp to be pretty important. I did an experiment a few years ago with mid range ($600-1000) marantz, yamaha, nad and pioneer elite receivers, a benchmark DAC2, and bryston amps (3B). Speakers were home brew with upper end scanspeak drivers. I found that the amp made the most difference. Bryston was the best by a lot. Nad was next and others close behind. Any of the receivers as a DAC/pre and the bryston amp was better than the benchmark DAC feeding the “pure input” of any receiver. YRMV… but a general guide.
I don’t have any of those amps/receivers now… the NAD receiver I currently use was bought on Craigslist for $400. It’s a T775HD… sold for $3000 new and sounds great. It doesn’t have all the latest HT features and reliability is ?.. but been good for many years. For 400, cant beat it. Yeah a great DAC makes it sound a little better but the DACs mileage goes further with a good amp (like a used bryston, diy hypex, etc.).
So based on your room, I’d start with thinking about speakers that sound good in that corner placement. But also fit your musical taste (which I don’t know)… dynaudio/totem comes to mind. Harbeth but they are so pricey… that’s why I home brew. I have some North Creek Kitty Kat’s that would prob be good in that room… they are bookshelf speakers that play down into the mid 30s placed tight to the back wall. I’d read some reviews, listen, and shortlist Some speakers and then keep an eye out for them used. Same on the amp… if you are just looking for stereo look for a $2000+ receiver that someone is ditching because it doesn’t have the latest HDMI… Probably has a pretty good DAC, amp and power supply.
I too have been at this hobby many years. I have a solution for you that is less than $3000 US and lets you move your existing receiver and speakers to your TV room. Consider getting a pair of Elac ARB-51 powered speakers @ $2400 with stands (I got mine for $2000 including stands on sale at Crutchfield). This is a true high end system in that has 6 power amps: each one ideally mated to one of the 3 speakers of each channel. The result is high end detail, realistic mids, authoritative base, wide and deep sound stage, focused imaging, rocking high volume listening, detailed relaxing low volume listening, and excellent spouse acceptance factor (they are small and have a high end modern yet classic appearance). In wireless mode (limited to CD quality) an additional small box called an Elac Discovery Connect is required but there is no wire between the speakers. Because there is a volume control in the digital domain (in Roon) an analog preamp is optional.
To the OP:
Having been doing this for 20+ years, the comments about room acoustics and how your speakers interface to the room are right on target: these are by far the largest improvements you’ll make.
It sounds like you have a mechanical hum/buzz coming from your receiver and subwoofer, even with no other components connected. This is most likely caused by a DC offset in your AC power. The good news is that this can be comparatively inexpensive to fix as far as power conditioners go, but you need to buy one that targets this specific problem. Emotiva used to sell one for $100 (USD) or so; I don’t know whether they still do… PS Audio discontinued theirs a long time ago, but it was $300. So you shouldn’t have to spend a fortune to address this problem.
Good luck!
Yeah, forgot about them -
Unless your Marantz has pre-amp outs you won’t be able to use it, so this -
Two excellent Canadian brands to consider are PSB speakers and Bryston electronics. PSB makes great value products, and Bryston has great sound and offers a 20 year warranty on their products. A good condition used Bryston integrated could work really well, and the warranty is transferable.
I know others have already commented negatively on the digital side, but the digital source and DAC absolutely can make a significant difference. Since you’re looking at Schiit, I can vouch for the quality of their gear from personal experience. As others have said, speakers first (can you pull them out from the wall?), but I think you’re also heading in the right direction to be experimenting with the source.
Regarding the sub, position does matter. Depending on where it is, it may be out of phase with the speakers, or reinforcing a room node. Dialing in a sub is a challenge involving placement, crossover and volume. A common mistake is havI got the crossover too high and the volume too low. There’s a good article by Steve Guttenberg here on sub setup: https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-set-up-a-subwoofer/
Good luck.
Im in a similar boat. New to roon and re awakening my vinyl collection as well. I have a decent 7:1 surround amp and. Dali speakers. I was very disappointed with the 2 channel sound for the music as opposed to movies no matter what i did.
My solution was to invest in a second hand cyrus amp and power supply for the music side of things and a decent speaker switch for the Dali floorstanders so they can be used for both. That transformed the sound.
I then went on and replaced the sonos endpoint with a project stream box ultra and s2 dac.
Not mega bucks but as many have said the surround amps lack a lot musically. In my limited experience that is.
Yes, that sounds like a logical approach. Thanks!
Thanks for the recommendation, I did some reading on these and they could be a good option. I could use the Marantz as a preamp/DAC but would eventually need a new preamp to free up the Marantz for downstairs.
That makes a lot of sense. Thank you! I found the product from Emotiva to address this.
Thanks for the tip on the Canadian products. I’ll add them to the research list! I suspect I may have a bit of a phasing issue between my sub and speakers because of the positioning.
Thanks for sharing Trevor, sounds like you found a good solution!
If you are happy with end product why change anything?
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Why not use your current setup, and try to optimise it with little financial expense.
Since you mentioned, that you like tinkering a bit, you could get a UMIC measurement microphone for 100 bucks, install REW, and then get crossover, level and phasing right, after some reading up on the subject.
Doing it by ear in a trial and error process probably won’t get you close to an optimum.
And once you got versed with that, you could start doing room/speaker correction.
You’ll probably be blown away by the improvements wrought by going this route.
Wish you good luck with whatever you choose to do…
The Marantz SR6008 already includes measurement/setup. Plenty of scope to really make a mess…
Although moving the sub to the same wall as the main speakers might help.
Yes, I’ve wondered if it would be good or bad to apply REW / Roon room correction on top of the Marantz Audyssey correction that I’m already running. Also wondering if I could use the Audyssey measurement microphone with REW instead of spending $100 on one.
I’m definitely going to try moving the sub to the same wall as the speakers.
Edit: After doing a quick scan and initial reading on REW it sounds like @Marin_Weigel you are talking about using REW for measuring in order to properly position and integrate the sub rather than using it for correction. I gather the approach would be to use REW as a measuring tool for proper positioning of speakers and integration of sub and then follow that up with using it to apply room correction?
Wow. There are some very strongly worded opinions here. Lots of good advice, a little that i think is off base, but only a few justified or qualified.
I’ll just note that I’m an EE and have been designing on contract high end electronics, on and off for about 30 years.
First i’ll agree with the “get the setup right first” theme. IMO the most important determinants of sound quality are, roughly in rank order:
- the original recording/mastering - by far
- setup and the room (different but related, its difficult to fix some rooms)
- Speakers
Then i disagree, fairly strongly with what i see as “common wisdom” in this thread.
The next most important are sources, both analog (which you don’t use) and digital.
-
DAC / streamer. Why? Many, many reasons, but there are very big differences in DAC performance and sound; most coming from the reconstruction filters & amplifiers. As to streamers/etc this as to do with timing. Remember the digital reconstruction back into analog is based on quantified amplitudes (constrained by the bit depth) and exact timing of those amplitudes (constrained by jitter). They form a Cartesian coordinate that is then smoothed by reconstruction filters. Both are equally important to fidelity. Its math. And its amazing how many “engineers” ignore half the equation. The only thing debatable is whether you can hear it, and I’ll assert - as on who must discern between truth and BS professionally, that the differences are sometimes stark.
-
Amps and preamps (receiver).
Why last? especially since i make money selling them? because they have become pretty good in recent years, and because, while i have not heard yours, most Marantz stuff has been at the upper end of consumer mid-fi for decades. Its distortions tend to be consonant too, which is the way to go if once can choose between errors.
So in general i agree that you should first get the setup right and then look at those speakers (which again, i have not heard, i tend to play at a different price point). My strong guess is that you can get a lot of mileage out of speakers, and again, you need to think not just “good” vs “bad” but which give you what you value. Often for example, one must trade volume and bass for purer mid-range and highs. And recognize that colorations are often more from the cabinet than from some unobtanium-magneted driver. I’m at the point that if the speaker does not employ some kind of constrained-layer damping, i don’t even consider it.
So i guess i just take exception that DACs don’t matter. They do! And they have been a source of huge improvement over the past twenty years.
And yea, for $99 the Schiit Modi 3 is hard to beat. Again, its failings are easy to listen to. Sins of omission, not commission.
G
Agree, and that’s why one DAC vs. another doesn’t matter as much as one would anticipate.
Yes, that was my thinking.
I don’t know Audyssey’s microphone, so can’t comment on feasibility.
Also, I’m not fluent with Audyssey and it’s capabilities, but would tend not to set one room correction on top of another.
I’d rather use REW generated filters with Roon convolution engine, having full control of all parameters.
Also, I strongly recommend measuring the correction result, since faults in getting the parameters right show up this way.
Unfortunately, some commercial automatic correction schemes only show predictions of their implementation.
I get your logic, but it only applies to well done DACs. Now, how many DACs have you heard recently under controlled conditions? And what levels? Compared to the built-in DAC in a mid-priced receiver i think there will be very significant improvements - (but probably immaterial until other faults are corrected).
Let’s also keep in mind that if i didn’t have prototypes of all my own equipment, i’d probably have $35-50k worth of crud in my system. Its tremendously revealing. So maybe i care about things other don’t.
But most of us seem to agree that its not the place for the OP to start his journey…
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One thought about doing room correction in Roon… it only works if you’re using Roon. If the system is ever fed from other sources, it’s going to be uncorrected. Obvious maybe, but easily missed in the excitement…
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For sure. Right now I’m only using Roon, so that’s not a problem. But a consideration if I decide to blow the dust off the turntable.
I’m liking the idea of utilizing REW to measure the effects that the room layout and speaker positioning are having on my set up. People seem to agree that the layout/positioning is in the top 2 things to go after, along with having the right speakers. Its seems to me now that I can’t fairly judge my speakers without giving them the best chance at performing their best and REW is a quantitative tool to help achieve that. The approach I’m thinking about taking is this:
Speaker & Sub Setup:
- Measure with REW to position speakers as best as practicably achievable given my room layout.
- Add in the subwoofer and do a sub crawl, utilizing REW, to best position the sub and once positioned, measure again to set the crossover.
DSP Room Correction:
- Run Audyssey setup on the receiver and then measure again with REW to see how Audyssey performed. If Audyssey helped then use it and if any further filtering is required on top of Audyssey, apply those filters in Roon PEQ. If Audyssey didn’t help then perform all the room correction in Roon.
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