If you look around ,a little ,you can find the Oppo now, they're out there. I think your CD player is pretty good, especially for its price range,and the Aerials are good enough to survive several electronics upgrades ,so I would agree that as far as upgrading your equipment goes the pre/power is the place to look, however, I feel that if it is in any way possible you may gain an even bigger improvement by addressing the placement of your loudspeakers within the listening room. I know this can sometimes be problematic,especially if your room is doing double duty, and you have a significant other to contend with, but often times even small adjustments to the speaker placement can reap large benefits in sound quality, and the best part is that it is absolutely free! You will want to start by having your speakers form an equilateral triangle with your preferred listening position. There are different opinions on exactly what the percentages for these dimensions should be but you should experiment with different set ups to determine which works best for your speakers in your room. One pointer I will give though, and this may cause some dissension, is that you should not place the speakers symmetrically within your room, which is the most common placement you see with peoples speaker,even at dealers, and they should know better, and it is the most common mistake. As long as your speakers are equidistant from your listening position forming a equilateral triangle, but not symmetrically placed, by this I mean each speaker is exactly the same distance from the front and side walls, there should be no channel imbalance between the two speakers. This type of placement will go a long way to eliminating the build up of any standing waves and will have the added benefit of significantly improving the imaging and soundstaging performance of your loudspeakers.
What should I upgrade first?
Hi Folks,
This is my first post so I’ll try to be brief but also provide enough information for your consideration as well. Any suggestions and guidance you can provide will be appreciated.
My question is what is the weakest link in my system and what should be upgraded first to improve the sound quality? My budget for the upgrade is about $1K.
My passion is two channel as I listen mostly to classical and jazz. My set up consists of a NAD C521BEE CD player, a NAD C162 pre-amp paired with a NAD C272 (150 wpc), Aerial Acoustics Model 7, and Cobalt Cable interconnects and speaker cables. Also, a good portion of my listening takes place at night at low levels and is sourced by my CD collection. I do have a tuner (Denon T-550 I think) but don’t do any serious listening using the tuner. I suppose I should also mention that I have a DirecTV HD receiver that will occasionally be used to play the music channels. This set up is placed in my family room so I understand I’m making acoustic compromises out of practical necessity. The Aerials are spaced about five feet apart and only about a foot away from the wall.
I have a 5.1 set up downstairs which is used mostly for movies…NAD front end (T751 and 550) with 3 M&K S-100Bs, S-85s for the rear and a single M&K KX-12SF sub. My receiver is only 60wpc which is becoming an issue in driving the S-100Bs when I do want to listen to music.
Back to my question, my initial thought was to upgrade my amp for the 2-channel system and move my C272 down stairs to drive the left and right fronts thus getting two upgrades for the price of one. I’ve been thinking about a used Classe CA-101, CJ solid state (Sonographe or MF 2xxx series), Bryston 3B-ST or Vincent SP-331. Then I started thinking that my CD player was perhaps the weakest link and I should replace/upgrade it. The options I’ve been considering for the CD upgrade were the Music Hall CD25.2 or a Jolida JD-100a. The third option which I know very little about is using a DAC. I’m holding out for the Oppo Blu-Ray so I’ve thought about perhaps incorporating a DAC with the Oppo.
Thanks for your time and I look forward to reading your comments.
This is my first post so I’ll try to be brief but also provide enough information for your consideration as well. Any suggestions and guidance you can provide will be appreciated.
My question is what is the weakest link in my system and what should be upgraded first to improve the sound quality? My budget for the upgrade is about $1K.
My passion is two channel as I listen mostly to classical and jazz. My set up consists of a NAD C521BEE CD player, a NAD C162 pre-amp paired with a NAD C272 (150 wpc), Aerial Acoustics Model 7, and Cobalt Cable interconnects and speaker cables. Also, a good portion of my listening takes place at night at low levels and is sourced by my CD collection. I do have a tuner (Denon T-550 I think) but don’t do any serious listening using the tuner. I suppose I should also mention that I have a DirecTV HD receiver that will occasionally be used to play the music channels. This set up is placed in my family room so I understand I’m making acoustic compromises out of practical necessity. The Aerials are spaced about five feet apart and only about a foot away from the wall.
I have a 5.1 set up downstairs which is used mostly for movies…NAD front end (T751 and 550) with 3 M&K S-100Bs, S-85s for the rear and a single M&K KX-12SF sub. My receiver is only 60wpc which is becoming an issue in driving the S-100Bs when I do want to listen to music.
Back to my question, my initial thought was to upgrade my amp for the 2-channel system and move my C272 down stairs to drive the left and right fronts thus getting two upgrades for the price of one. I’ve been thinking about a used Classe CA-101, CJ solid state (Sonographe or MF 2xxx series), Bryston 3B-ST or Vincent SP-331. Then I started thinking that my CD player was perhaps the weakest link and I should replace/upgrade it. The options I’ve been considering for the CD upgrade were the Music Hall CD25.2 or a Jolida JD-100a. The third option which I know very little about is using a DAC. I’m holding out for the Oppo Blu-Ray so I’ve thought about perhaps incorporating a DAC with the Oppo.
Thanks for your time and I look forward to reading your comments.
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