Does an upgrade make sense?


I may be coming down with the upgrade bug, and I’m open to suggestions. I’m quite happy with what I have—excellent imaging, musicality, dynamics. Maybe I could use a little more depth (left right is fine and speakers truly disappear), and maybe a touch more dynamics.

Almost everything I listen to is Qobuz streaming or hi res and flac files from a NAS (hard drive). My system:

Cambridge 851 Streamer/DAC

Bel Canto Pre5

Bel Canto Ref 500 monoblocks

Dali Mentor 6 floorstanders

Everything sits on maple plinths, Gaia iiis, or pucks.

Cabling is mid range Morrows. I previously had Kimber KS1116s but sold them as the Morrows sounded just as good, on the current set up.

What do I need to get more of everything? Speakers? DAC, Streamer? Amp?

tomaswv

Showing 1 response by o_holter

With some rearrangement of furnishing etc in the room you may be able to create more of a long side and a short side. Place speakers so they fire along the long side of the room. Let the speakers breathe - have space on all sides, and work with exact toe-in and positioning. Next, consider a turntable and phono preamp. If you do need subs, consider four of them, just for the lowest bass, with less crossover problems (e g Audiokinesis Swarm). Personally I gave up on subs after some years with a Velodyne DD18, replacing two REL Strata, and others. I like better bass but not the solid-state and equalized type of sound.