Hi all
Hopefully this hasn't specifically been discussed before. First post so 'Hello!', and please go easy! Seen some similar posts but nothing that covers my specific circumstances.
Current setup:
Marantz TT15S turntable
Simaudio Moon 110LP v2 phono preamp
Oppo 203 Bluray
Marantz AV8802A preamp
ATI AT6005 power amp (front 5 channels)
Arcam FMJ P7 Power amp (rear channels and future height speakers)
Lumagen Radiance pro video processor
Sony 83 inch A90J Master series 4k OLED
Monitor Audio Gold 300 5g fronts
Monitor Audio Gold 300 5g surrounds
Monitor Audio Gold C350 centre
Monitor Audio Gold 100 5g rear
2 x JTR Captivator 2400 subwoofers
I set my system up principally for HT - it performs extremely well for that (please note the JTR subs are en route and not in action yet - currently slumming it with a SVS PB13 Ultra). However I am getting back into vinyl hence the TT15S turntable and Simaudio phono stage.
I really want to maximise my vinyl experience (virtually no digital audio listened to) and ideally I want to incorporate my two subs as I do like lovely deep solid bass. A lot of my listening would be rock type music - basically anything with drums and guitars, but also more female vocal dominated Indie/pop/'alternative'.
I only want a single setup, so looking at incorporating a stereo (2.2/2.1) preamp with HT bypass between my Marantz pre and my ATI/Arcam. But I am really struggling finding a suitable option. Being based in the UK there are few places to listen and no chance of home demos.
I currently use the Marantz in Pure Direct but with large main plus LFE+main - which I now understand gives me not a pure direct but double bass! Thanks Marantz for the helpful description! I need to experiment a bit with settings to discover how the various settings sound.
The options seem to be:
- Preamp with digital room correction and bass management - such as the Anthem STR preamp which has sub outputs and option of pure analogue;
- Preamp with HT bypass but no option to realistically incorporate my subs such as McIntosh, Primaluna, Bryston etc - If you look at my sub specs, it doesn't have all the high and low pass filters to enable me to control the sub with a full range output from the preamp, which is frustrating;
-Preamp with HT bypass and analogue crossover for sub - Parasound P6 - although heard that is not a great preamp.
Is there an option that will provide an audible increase in analogue sound quality? and which option is best?
Being able to use my subs seems to restrict myself to the Anthem STR or the Parasound P6. I really like the look of the Anthem - gives me the option of a full analogue signal path but also to use it's ARC genesis to include room correction/bass management. But would this be a noticeable upgrade on the Marantz? It is £4k here. I've heard stereo amps are significantly better than AV amps for music, but is this true for analogue?
Should I even consider room correction/bass management with analogue? As that means ADC, processing then DAC - some people say the processing far outweighs the conversions - other people say 100% the opposite!
Should I continue to want to use my subs for great solid bass? My fronts go to 30Hz. My subs will be tuned to 10Hz. Or should I stick with the pure analogue sound - most high end music amps just don't include sub outputs. Is this a throw away from when I first started listening to music and speakers were huge boxes with 12 inch woofers? Now we have much slimmer 6.5"/8" woofers, which just do not produce the bass.
Or should I just stick with what I've got?
Budget is c£5k - Prices will be quite different in the UK to the US which makes recommendations difficult as different brands have completely different pricing structures over here!
I don't really want to change any other components, especially the speakers/turntable/power amp. Changing the preamp will be too expensive to get what I need.
Many thanks for any help you can be.
Nic
