2. speakers
  3. 176877-166623

everything sounded great until the upgrade

In short: I loved the sound of my modest system, until I upgraded my amp. Now it  sounds pretty horrible. It went from a warm sweet embracing easy-to-listen sound to knives and forks trying to escape from a bathtub.

So...

1. I can just unplug this new amp (used) and sell it

Any other options? I could upgrade my speakers but I have no budget for that.

2. I could sell the speakers and use money to buy used ones that go with the amp. 

3. Lastly I could change the source, but was it the culprit - to begin with?

btw - the sound of the "new" amp is decent with my turntable, and terrible with my CD player.

(If I wrote brands and models it would throw the discussion into "A sucks, B is great")

grislybutter
grislybutter OP
2,317 posts
 

@rar1 

local CBS 8PM news:

husband found dead in the suburbs, no motive or suspect have been identified. He was apparently hit by a hard object. Some blood was found on an audio equipment looking item labeled 'CD PRE 24', retrieved from the trash bin

decooney
1,906 posts
 

@grislybutter as you learn about DACs, you’ll find a subset of folks in search of DAC units trying to make regular 16-bit CDs sound closer to vinyl. And other camps who are into hi-res, oversampling. Different roads to take. Take your time learning. In your case, learning through members like @rar1 who’ve heard and matched up your A3.2 with specific MF CD players is a good approach if choose to stay with CD only. As others have pointed out, some older CD players can be a gem too.

DAC: For any reason you decide to buy a streamer later on down the road, buying a good DAC would allow you to run a CD player -AND- a streamer through the same DAC, thus benefiting both sources. Many of us here use external DACs. You’ll literally find hundreds of other threads here on A’gon about "which DAC".

rar1's avatar
rar1
1,746 posts
 

@grislybutter - 

hell of a waste of a good player, when a baseball bat or brick could have done the same thing.    

If it helps any, I use a Decware phono preamp with my CD Pre24 and Technics 1210 TT.

Rich 

grislybutter OP
2,317 posts
 

@rar1  yes, but that's 2 birds with 1 stone :)

cat_doorman
236 posts
 

Toe in might soften some top end depending on off axis response.
Older CD players can definitely benefit from an external DAC  


I have an MF A300 with a pair of Dynaudio Audience 82 that I bought new and used everyday for about 20 years. I thought it was a great match, but it’s hard to hold off the itch indefinitely. (20 years is pretty good though) I recently upgraded “everything”, but I haven’t been able to make myself sell any old equipment yet. There’s a fantasy of a 2nd system (that I doubt I will ever use).

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