Where to go from here?


I have a treated dedicated room with pmc ci140 speakers. So my room and speakers are done. Now i need to get the front end up to par. The pmc speakers are being fed by a denon 3700h to monolith amplifier.  I rather not get hung up on which brand is best but what makes a bigger positive improvement? I can purchade a reference dac with volume like a weiss 501 or tambaqui, or i could buy a quality integrated like a mcintosh ma9500 or hegel 590. If i get the weiss or tambuqui it will be awhile until my wallet cools off, so i would keep the monolith amp for a few years. If i get a quality integrated it would be a few yrs until i got a reference seperate dac. Sooooo......what the heck makes sense and which would make the biggest improvement?  Thanks

128x128davekuyt11

@jjss49

Good catch, I incorrectly assumed that the speaker were either bookshelf or floorstanders.

@davekuyt11
Speaker placement, a trial and error exercise, is extremely important in high end audio and necessary to get the great 3D soundstage. Room treatments usually happen after placement of speakers to tame unwanted reflections and bass energy. In high end audio, everything in the audio chain matters. The lack of ability for optimal speaker placement is a glaring weak chain link.

Are you assembling an analog and/or a digital system?

Digital only. I mostly stream qobuz. I use a transport for a few cds some of the time. I can add krell to the list. How is  the bolder 866? If one pops up used that could be another made in america integrated to add to mcintosh and krell.

Going back to  ghdprentice's comment. His opinion was that the streamer was possibly the most important. In that case I need to audition a lumin x1 or p1. Reviews claim that the leedh volume is as good as a preamp. Its dac looks to be very good. I see used x1 in the  7-8000 range. The new p1 would get me ht bypass. I could then save up to get the lumin amp later. Their amp has high impedance input to work well with leedh direct to amp. The amp sure is pricey tho.