2. digital
  3. 1021234736

want to upgrade music performance in HT syst.

First the system:

Pioneer Elite DVC-36(odvious weak link for music but love video performance and conveniance of 5 discs.)
Krell HTS1
Plinius SA-250mkIV
Aragon 8008x3b
Dynaudio Contour 3.0
Dyn Contour cntr ch
Dyn 1.3mkII
Rel Storm III sub

I'm not getting the performance that I feel I should be getting, for music, from this system. I cannot afford a separate music only system and I know someone will mention getting rid of the HTS. Sorry, but I love the performance I get from this piece overall and I will not let it go. I've looked into getting a dedicated cdp and have rounded up the usual suspects. Budget; Music Hall MMF cd-25, Rega Planet 2000, top of the line Rotel, various Sony sacd players but I'm not interested in multi-ch music formats at all. The more pricier suspects; Rega Jupiter, Accuphase, Electrocompaniet, Wadia, Levinson, ext. The dealer I purchased my Krell HTS from mentioned that the dacs in the HTS are state of the art, so I could run a good transport and have the processor do the upsampling. I'm so confused. I just want to enjoy my music and I know I'm not getting everything I can from my dvd player. I would like to keep the cost down, $750-$1500. I would greatly appreciate any help you guys & gals could give me. I'm running a Goldmond digital cable (RCA to RCA terminated) and I've had my doubts about that purchase. If you have any thoughts on this cable or any ideas for an upgrade I would love to hear from you as well. Thanks in advance for your help.....John
jrwr7

Showing 2 responses by kthomas

kthomas
911 posts
 
Any chance you're located in STL? Your system looks like one that would be put together by one of the local shops here.

It's not clear if you're using the DVD player as a full blown CD player or just as a transport, but definitely don't use it as a CD player. If you are, change to using it just as a transport and feed the digital signal to the HTS. The HTS doesn't have analog pass-thru, so you're going through two conversions you don't need if you're using the DVD player as a CD player into the HTS. Because of that lack of pass-thru, I'm doubting that any CD player purchase will change the performance of your system. If you have one of the HTS2 that do have that feature, then I'd most definitely recommend a good CD player in lieu of a transport into the Krell. I'd recommend a used Arcam FMJ23 or, for a bit more, a Muse Model 9 (regular or Signature). I have a very similar system to yours (same basic speaker setup, similar amplification quality) and recently added the Muse to my great satisfaction.

You don't mention your room - perhaps setup is an issue? Also - run a couple (few?) dedicated 20amp circuits to your setup if you haven't already. -Kirk

kthomas
911 posts
 
How big is your TV? If it's a 50+ inch TV, then another problem would be only 7' of separation between the L/R speakers as that would imply they're pretty close to the edge of the TV. Getting the fronts of the speakers in front of the TV and the sides some breathing room from the TV will both help the music reproduction. However, having a big TV in the middle of your speakers is going to negatively impact the performance no matter what you do. The only way around that would be a retractable screen, plasma TV or RPTV built into the wall.

Also, while I don't recommend choosing music based on it's recording quality rather than it's content, I'd recommend getting some CDs you're very familiar with and/or are of noted high recording quality that have a deep and wide soundstage and be sure that part of your dissatisfaction isn't merely that the recordings you're listening to are less than stellar. Maybe even resort to the Stereophile test CDs or something - they give you a lot of tools to experiment with. In any case, a lot of music I like a lot isn't recorded particulary well and has very little soundstage depth. Maybe you like the same stuff. -Kirk

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