Amp: Do yourself a favor, get something with some heavy duty wattage since
the Mini2 sensitivity is fairly low. Unless you plan to color the sound with
tubes, you are going to get the most for your money by being able to turn
your system up louder without causing excess distortion. The Bryston 28B
SST is a great place to start with 1000 Watts. I do well with the Ayre MX-Rs
on my Salon2s (86 dB sensitivity), but if I could do a direct trade in for the
28B SST I would, just for the extra headroom...
If you are happy with what you have though, why change it? See if it distorts
at all with the volume levels you will use, if not, then don't replace it. That is
why I didn't replace my MX-Rs with something more powerful... I use the
Bryston PowerPac 300 SST amps on the rest of my Salon2 7.2 surround
system, and they function as adequately as the MX-Rs at the levels I listen to
music at. This is with 5+ speakers playing and subs handling the lower
frequencies, which does make a difference on amplifier load... So it isn't a
fair comparison.
Preamp: Why not a preprocessor? No surround sound? It really depends on
how much you want to spend. You could certainly go with something Bryston
as well if you get Bryston amps. I would just try to match it with the company
whose amps you buy, since they likely designed them to work well together
(of course, you could just look up the numbers and make sure they will work
well together, and mix and match). I'm not one of those people who think
you will see a tremendous impact on performance between well designed
preamps, unless they INTENTIONALLY add distortional elements (which some
companies actually do, believe it or not - and some people here swear by
those preamps!).
Cables: Something cheap, but make sure it has a grounding spade... I
learned the hard way not to waste money on cables. I spent a few thousand
dollars on Nordost Frey cables and heard no difference at all compared to
cables costing a few hundred dollars. Don't let this happen to you, unless you
are highly susceptible to hearing things that aren't really there...
Room: I would get a professional to acoustically design your room. Someone
who has lots of experience professionally and has had professional training in
the field (including a background in mechanical engineering/physics). Local
might be better since the person has more accountability, but it won't be
cheaper. Make sure he/she really has a background in the field though and
isn't just your local HiFi dealer winging it without any acoustical measuring
equipment.
Good luck, and I hope you don't get suckered into the bologna in this
hobby... You already picked a well measuring speaker, so you are heading in
a good direction.
