New Audiophile - Upgrade Amp First or CDP First?

Is your plan to go to seperates...if so, there is soooo much gear that would fall in your price range. You could get a pretty good pre/amp/player combo from around $1500...In addiiton, I recently heard some of the new CEC stuff...CD player and integrated amplifier for $1600 NEW! This stuff was compeating with Audio Research at 5x the price...that being said, don't limit yourself, do your research, and maybe even take a road trip to hear some things that may interest you. You will thank yourself in the long run if you take your time now...or you could just go on an "Audiogon" buying spree, and sell the stuff you don't like...that is what I typically do!

Take care, best of luck,
Ben

What kind of music do you primarily listen to; size room, accoustic signiture of the room? Before anyone can recommend anything they need to know that first. In general I would say the amp/pre combination such as an integrated amplifier before your cd player. I believe you stated you have a philips player. What model? Some of the older philips models where very good. I owned a cd-80 and it was a very good player even compared to todays low cost (sub $1500) players.

You are going to get tons of suggestions and become very confused if you are not careful did I mention frustrated as well. Good Luck.

Chuck

Someone said:

"You could get a pretty good pre/amp/player combo from around $1500...In addiiton, I recently heard some of the new CEC stuff...CD player and integrated amplifier for $1600 NEW!"

Do you have any specific model numbers? That would help me a lot.

In terms of what kind of music I play and size room, etc.:

I play mostly rock: late 60's psychedelic, 70's progressive, 70's krautrock, general classic rock, folk, acid folk - that's 90% of my collection. I also play some free jazz, some ambient electronic, some 80's shoegaze - a handful of other genres, but that's mostly it. The room is pretty small, maybe 9X12 or so. It's my office/music room and it's somewhat crowded but has a decent amount of empty space as well. It's a perfect rectangle except for a small section that was made into a bathroom with door), so think rectangle with a very small rectangle taken out of it.

I don't recall the Philips model till I get home. It's a 3-cd changer with a burner on the other side which is why I bought it. That said, the burner stopped working years ago and the 3-cd changer unit has been deteriorating slowly for awhile - it skips a fair amount - definitely needs to be discarded and I'll probably just throw it away instead of replacing it when the time comes - I can't imagine anyone would want it with its faults.

Sounds like you answered your own question! If your player is not working properly why would you not replace it first.

Sounds like you are at the same place I started a little over a year ago. My suggestion: upgrade the amp and cabling first. As suggested earlier, unless you're listening to the radio it's maybe not worth getting the receiver. If your receiver has pre/outs, you can use it as a preamp/processor. I started with Outlaw's 2200 mono-blocks, and changed out all I/C's, power cords, and speaker cables with Signal Cables gear (signalcables.com). The Silver Resolution Series is reference level. Check them out. They're audiophile quality at affordable prices. Next, you could start out with either the Sony CE595 or Sony 2000ES changer ... $150 or $400 respectively. The 2000ES is quite nice as a stock unit. Later you can upgrade to another level with any of the mods suggested in your CDP thread. This changes will take you a long way.