Help a confused newbie build his first setup...

Going in just remember this, "Everything Matters" ... especially if you want to be a card carrying audio nut or if you are, but don't know it yet.

How much does eeach area (amps, speakers, sources, cables, conditioning, isolation, acoustical treatments)matter?

Well now... that's the $64 question, or the $1K, $2K, $3K or $30K or $$$$$$, question.

IMHO.... If you take the ‘front to back ’ approach of system building, wherein you begin with the source and move towards the speakers, rather than the “speaker first” path, you’ll save money initially.

That’s the way I’ve nearly always began building a stereo outfit.

Great speakers normally require great front ends, (sources, preamps, amps, cabling, conditioning too maybe) to sound their best.

Great sources, preamps and amps, along with good cables and possibly some power line conditioning, if needs be, can do very very well with far less than superior speakers.

AS for monitors vs floorstanders… there are numerous pages right here in the disscussion forum archives that may add to the pros and and cons for each…. Normally, both types take up roughly the same foot print or floor space.

Searching the “Virtual systems” that contain PCs and/or Airport Express units also could be helpful.

You’ve got a pretty decent sized space to fill out given the openings to another room… so depending on how important bass is to you, and of course it do seem you’ll need to continue to address that particular part of the audio rig now and then, you can pretty much determine the minimum power/speaker ratings up front. Do know this however… more power is better than not enough power if ever in doubt.

A good DAC IMHO should be your first concern. Not top of the line now but as good as you can afford now… IMO a good to pretty good DAC = $500 to $1,000. IF PC audio is your sole source, and none other is desired, picking a DAC which can remotely adjust the volume eliminates the need for a preamp, now or entirely. A pretty good SS amp can be had for $1K or less… preowned. Again, IMHO. Leaving you with only the need for loudspeakers. Monitors at first look seem the proper path to save funds and gain better bang for buck. Add in the notion that good stands for those monitors will definitely reflect in how well they’ll perform, and they are NEEDED, and the monitor price rises. Add in too another couple or three feet are needed to connect cables to tall stand mounted monitors , and the price again goes up.

The poster above that mentioned the Quadds is a good idea I suppose. They do get a lot of positive press . So do many others. Totems for instance also get some great following, and many other names come to mind. Silverline two ways are very nice. All that said, I bought a pr of older towers locally from another member for under $700 that don’t look great, but play super with about any amplification and setting. Phase TechnologiesPC 10.5. In a 16 x 12 x 8.5 room with 100 wpc @ 8 ohms, they work very well indeed. Larger room? There they will need more juice as they are 87db & 4 ohm or less speakers.. In my 21 x 14 x 8.5 room, 200 wpc @ 8 ohms ought be adequate for starters….. again… more is better. In there I used a BAT vk500 w/BAT pk amp to drive them, 250wpc @ 8 ohms.

My Bel Canto e one DAC3, + Odyssey Stratos Plus amp + PT PC 10.5, + Synergistic Research speaker cables and Audio Art Interconnects or Kimber Hero’s, Nordost Blue Heavens, or even some Micro Pearl ICs, should make a nice sounding outfit that has a very good degree of honesty and neutrality. I do prefer tubes, but that ain’t a bad setup. Your wallet might agree with it/them, but it always comes down to the ears and sometimes the eyes.

As for how much money is needed to first get going? That’s all up to you. Matching the power ratings of amps to the needs of the speakers is a very, very key thing. The initial outlay likely will come down to how much paitience you have on tap, and how picky you are overall or how compromising you can be.

Integrated amps are a sound choice too initially. Keep to popular trens right off and you can do the Audiogon shuffle, buy try, and sell later if not a good fit for you, or it’s time to move on…

The more eclectic your choices the tuffer it’ll be to move them out later on…. Just a heads up. Heed or ignore at will.

A Blue Circle, Bel Canto, Peach tree, Nuforce, Wyred 4 Sound and lots of other, LSA, ETC. ARE SOLID integrated amp CHOICES….

Get out and listen to as much as you can now…. And see what’s going for what.. price to sound-wise. Then… have fun. It ain’t a heart transplant or anything nearly as critical… it’s a hobby.. a past time, and should be fun. Always.

Good luck

How big is the house?

I've heard from one dealer at least that one of his customers brought back in a loudspeaker that broke. Blew out. During discovery of how the buyer used the stereo system he bought from the dealer it was determined the customer had maxed out the volume so he could hear it while he worked outside of the house. Leaving it uop like that he eventaully blew the loudspeaker. It's a popular one seen around here often... but not up to the task of a PA system.

Looking at my own setups, my best ssytem produces the best sound. Period. In that room or outside of it. Within reason of course. Albeit, I don't use it as a Public Announcing system. If that was what I wanted... sheer volume... I'd go to Sam Ash or some likewise joint and get a P.A. outfit.

Sound quality is a product of ALL of the system components. The room. The speakers. The source device. The amplification. the system's setup itself. ALL OF IT is responsible for the quality of sound the system generates.

Down stream components can not recover what is not shown initially.

IOW the best speakers in the world can not reach back upstream and make up for inadequacies of the rig's front end... a less than source... modest preamp... poor amp... etc. They can only give you back that which you fed them.

Consequently, and often this note gets obscured by the "speaker first camp" devotees..... Signal integrity is the Holy Grail in audio.

Generate a quality signal first.... nothing downstream of your source item is going to make up for any loss or degredation, lack of fidelity or lack thereafter.

the thing the "speaker first group" leaves out almost everytime is this caveat.... it's encumbant upon the system builder to upgrade the upstream components as soon as possible so they are all on par with the investment you made initially by pitching the greatest part of your stereo budget into loudspakers, instead of elsewhere.

They also don't add in that for the more modest or budget minded audio buff, this might take a few years or even more than that to ultimately accomplish.

If it takes say 4 or even five years to wind up with a really nice front end... by then those great XYZ speakers are now five years old and have likely been superceded by some other itteration, revised, revamped, remade, improved, altered or changed somehow.

In the meantime the quality of the sound slowly improved as the source, power, etc. all improved.... marginally and slowly.

But then of course, if one loves to look at great speakers, that won't sound their best until the rest of the rig is up to snuff... well... then it's speakers that should garner the greatest portion of the budget immediately... I suppose.

...and that's my issue with that philosophy. "First". I've no issues with speakers eating up a big piece of the audio budget pie when all is said and done... just not right off the bat.

Naturally the same argument could be reversed as everything changes, gets altered & hopefully bettered. then too, there are those "keeper" pieces that aren't bettered and from them only different can be expected.

There's no question speakers make the biggest impact on your stereo. Nothing else will make qauite as big a difference. And you're forced to most often, look at 'em all the time.

....and what then if you decide to go flea power & high eff speakers? Or tube power? Or someone wants to remodel paint and redecorate in the next couple months?

Loud squeakers are important... but they ain't everything. to get started I'd split it up into thirds. A third on source, another third on power, and the last third on speakers. right after a system is in house, I'd begin addressing all the pheripherals and accessories. Room treatments, cab ling, isolation, power line artifacts... etc.

It'll sound good throughout the appropriate listening distance.

BTW... all my speakers, are cones or domes. I've no panel speakers. My House is under 2K sq ft too... and no amp I own has more than 200wpc @ 8ohms. I can hear my 93db speakers anywhere in the home if I choose and they are run by a 150wpc multi ch amp most of the time...otherwise power comes from a pr of 120 wpc mono blocks.. it sounds great to me.