Does an upgrade make sense?


I may be coming down with the upgrade bug, and I’m open to suggestions. I’m quite happy with what I have—excellent imaging, musicality, dynamics. Maybe I could use a little more depth (left right is fine and speakers truly disappear), and maybe a touch more dynamics.

Almost everything I listen to is Qobuz streaming or hi res and flac files from a NAS (hard drive). My system:

Cambridge 851 Streamer/DAC

Bel Canto Pre5

Bel Canto Ref 500 monoblocks

Dali Mentor 6 floorstanders

Everything sits on maple plinths, Gaia iiis, or pucks.

Cabling is mid range Morrows. I previously had Kimber KS1116s but sold them as the Morrows sounded just as good, on the current set up.

What do I need to get more of everything? Speakers? DAC, Streamer? Amp?

tomaswv

If you like the DALI house sound, it's very possible that upgrading your speakers may scratch your upgrade itch. I have the Epicon 6's and love them. Even so, I use a pair of Rythmik 12" sealed subs to get the very low end. It makes a difference, and I fully agree with @soix regarding the improvements in soundstage and imaging. But echoing others, the point of diminishing returns is a deeply personal one. 

+1 @socalml528 as well... just listening with eyes closed vs. open, light levels, etc., make a huge difference; by removing some senses from the listening experience, you improve the sense of hearing.

just listening with eyes closed vs. open, light levels, etc., make a huge difference

@sfgak +1. A long time ago I saw a Wilson Audio demo with BAT electronics at a show where David Wilson played a Sting song with full band live in concert, and he turned the lights down and it made a huge difference and was pretty incredible — and I didn’t even like Wilson speakers back then (it was some Watt Puppy version BTW). As soon as I got home I ordered the CD and I still never listen to that song with the lights on ever because it’s just a totally different experience. I find live recordings in general benefit more from low lighting than studio recordings, at least in my experience. BTW, if anyone’s interested in the track I’m talking about it’s “Fragile” from Sting’s Still be Love in the World CD released in 2001. In my system the entire stage and performers like four feet above my speakers and crowd noise like individual whistles and screams come from all around and way outside the speakers, and it really produces the feeling and experience of being in a stadium at a live concert. Really fun. FWIW.

@soix Yeah, I forget which live jazz album I was listening to, but I got really annoyed at the table to the left of me making too much noise during the performance -- jostling and whispering... A great reminder of a great soundstage...

Here is a path that will tie you up for a bit. The New Cambridge Audio CXN V2 is Roon Ready.  explore upgrading to that and firing up a Roon trial and running the core on a PC or desktop you might have on the network.  At this point you are not testing SQ but all the other features ROON environment provides, like blending your Local files with Qobuz offerings and all the other meta data features.    Then if that is all good then get a real audio quality host of the Roon core like a SGC ST i5.  Then you can compare the SQ of Roon to what the CXN V2 can do with Roon out of the loop.