Meridian G-08 or ProAc Response TriTower Upgrade

Make sure you listen to that G08 at length. I heard it when it just came out at a head-fi meet and was absolutely blown away. I lusted for it for weeks after that and finally bit when a dealer friend of mine cut me a deal on one he'd ordered for a customer in Black and received in Silver.

It was my biggest disappointment in audio in my own system (and ironically the most I've spent on any single component). I struggled for 6 weeks to love it but ultimately felt it had no soul.

I exchanged emails with two other forumers who bought one within a week of me and they too were disappointed and ended up selling within a few months. I don't mean to bash meridian as I owned and liked a 508.20 but just make sure the G08 is for you.

On the other hand, while I haven't heard the speakers you propose, ProAc Response 2s driven by VTL TT-25s was something quite special to my ears.

Roor,
You could get a reasonably priced DAC for the time being ,and use the PD-65 as a transport.
By the way, I bought my PD S-95 for $750.00 here on Audiogon, and I just love it. It is a great performer, and it is just the most elegantly built piece I've ever owned. I hope it never breaks.

I've done some more research, and the ProAc Response TriTowers were designed primarily for home theater use. The tall and skinny style has been designed to fit next to a plasma/lcd tv. The woofer, midrange and tweeter are higher up off the floor to duplicate sound coming from a tv higher up on a wall. ProAc says that these towers need to be be placed on or ddirectly near the rear wall to achieve desireable bass. I've read that even if they come out a few feet from the rear wall, all of their bass output is lost. So I decided to pass up the the tritowers and keep the totem hawks for awhile.

This still leaves me the dilema about the cd player though. I'm still on the fence about the Meridian G-08. As far as me getting a dac... I've been down the digital seperates road for 15 years. For transports, I've used several different Pioneer Elite PD-65's, PD-59, and as I mentioned above, I had the PDS-95 flagship transport for 10 years. For DAC's I used an Audio Research DAC2 then went to a DAC7 and finally sold that and went with a highly modified (GNS) Musical Fidelity Tri-Vista 21 tube dac.

I needed more space and was getting tired of the PDS-95 and dac set up. I was never very happy with the tri-vista 21. Even with $1500 + in upgrades from Great Northern Sound. So, I sold the PDS-95 and the tr-vista 21 and bought a BRAND NEW Esoteric X03-SE cd player. I can get treendous discounts on brand new (fully warranted) Esoteric components. The X03-SE is truly fantastic and I loved it. Built like a tank and very detailed and correct. The vrds mechanism gets a strong vote from me as well. It was killer. It came triple boxed with a cloth cover for it, and a gorgeous metal and leather remote.

Then the economy hit the toilet about 16 months ago. I was forced to sell most of my system to keep our home. I'm slowly getting my system back, and am "almost" complete except for speakers (need Devore Nines) and cd player (need X03-SE). I'm just not ready to go back into a seperate transport/dac setup at this time. I've also sold all of my super expensive STEALTH varidig digital cables so getting another would be a financial factor to consider. I also really believe the Esoteric X-03SE is a super cd player that will give any seperate dac/combo (even Esoterics) a serious run for their money. I just don't think you can wrong with the X-03SE if you can afford it. I may just have to wait and save up for another one. In the end, I won't be happy until I get another one! I should probably just run the PD-65 cd player for now until I can swallow a new Esoteric X-03SE. I can get brand new ones for $7500 so I should probably wait...