Money well spent on Amp or Speakers


Hey Everyone,

This is my first post on Audiogon so please bare with me. I currently have a very simple stereo setup:
2 B&W xt8 speakers
1 B&W PV1 sub
1 Rotel RC-1550 Preamp
1 Rotel RB-1552 Amp

Everything was selected due to the slim design and that they fit snugly under/near my TV Cabinet. The room with the gear is rather small at roughly 350 sqft and it is mainly used for TV and light CD playback. I just feel that the current setup is missing a lot of mid-range and the disconnect can be audibly noticed in the gap in-between when the speakers seems to fade away and the sup kicks in. I would like to keep everything as simple as possible and wanted to get the communities feedback as to what component in the chain should/could be replaced for the best sonic improvement? I would only want to upgrade 1 component at this time and am leaning towards a tube based amp. Any thoughts/suggestions?
pndxprss99

Showing 2 responses by mceljo

I have a Samsung BD-1600 player, get something else for CD playback. Mine's a pain in the butt and if you can't use the HDMI connection I would look for something else.
I'm not familiar with Rotel products, but I'd suspect that they are a solid product. I would probably look to upgrade the speakers, but really think your problem may be more related to subwoofer integration than any specific component. I "cheat" and have a receiver with Audyssey built in that does a great job of calibration.

Your speakers are spec'd such that they should easily have enough range to blend with a subwoofer without leaving a "hole" in the sound. I wouldn't expect a new amp or pre-amp to correct this.

You could consider going to a receiver with Audyssey, but I don't know how much of a step down that might be from your seperates.

How much time have you spent integrating the subwoofer?