2. amps-preamps
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amp upgrade

I have been using CA CXA80 with B&W 604  speakers for about 5 years. I use Sonos streamer hooked up to the amp using optical cable. Also have some CD's and blue rays. overall sound is good but I always feel some punch and dynamic element is missing when I listen to the same titles with other random systems. Also the combo is not that expressive at lower volumes, sound gets a bit lost when volume is low. the other issue is lack of clarity in speech when watching movies. have to crank up the volume to hear the conversations but still a bit mushy.... When I bought the system I also auditioned an Arcam FMJ amp which sounded cleaner than the CXA80, I still remember it. it was not an option back then due to lack of availability. 
Wondering if upgrading the amp would solve this issue. I am looking at the newer stuff, preferably a steaming amp as most of my music is sourced from Tidal. Has anyone  used the Naim unity atom or the NAD m10 V2 ? are these any good? In particular something that can reproduce clean sound at lower volumes. I will at some point upgrade the speakers too but I feel I should be able to squeeze more out of them with a better amp? 

 

thanks 

speedmaster20d

Showing 3 responses by speedmaster20d

speedmaster20d OP
17 posts
 

thanks, sorry I was not clear. the movie source is not blue ray, they are mostly streaming 4K from the smart TV which is connected to the amp via optical. The TV converts from DTS5.1 to 2CH PCM stereo. Maybe the issue is the TV DSP and downsampling to 2CH. I can rule this out by trying a blue ray movie and setting the blue ray player to 2CH PCM and see if it makes a difference. 

the equal loudness reference is very helpful, it seems the low frequencies need quite a bit of boost as the amplitude drops. I am going to try this, I have heard some systems that perform much better at lower volume but maybe they had more bass to start with. 

speedmaster20d OP
17 posts
 

I looked at AVR I have ceiling speakers that can function as 4 channel, the issue is that I want the integrated amp to drive the tower speakers (most cheap AVR sound awful, I had a pioneer "elite"  and ditched ditched it a while back). furthermore cheap AVR's don't have typically pre out except for sub. What I need is a DTS/surround processor that would take the TV HDMI-ARC and process it into left/right/center/surround and output it via pre out so I can connect it to the stereo amp for the towers and the mono amps for the ceilings speakers. to my knowledge only one such equipment exist made by emotiva audio, but there aren't many reviews of its quality  https://emotiva.com/products/basx-mc1-13-2-channel-dolby-atmos-dts-x-cinema-processor?utm_campaign=gs-2019-11-07&utm_source=google&utm_medium=smart_campaign&gclid=Cj0KCQjwmN2iBhCrARIsAG_G2i6Id_t07wXE5UZX1ke8nWuITpDho_mcZLF9caSiV9PG4eNiReZCQ6saAoiPEALw_wcB

speedmaster20d OP
17 posts
 

Thanks for the review article it does echo my experience. I recently got an Arcam sa20 amp and st60 streamer with DAC and sound quality improver noticeably. Including low volumes. The other amp was just not a good match for my speakers. 

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