14 year old HiFi - upgrading to universal CD/DVD and movie/music amp

[admin_exported]

A remortgage and house move beckons and with it chance to fritter away some of my hard earned on new toys.

My seperates were pretty good first rung of the ladder back in 1993:

Rotel RA-935BX amp
Marantz CD52 cd player
Denon TU-260L tuner
Mission 781 stand mounted speakers

and I've recently treated them to QED Qunex 1 interconnects all round and a Tacima CS929 mains conditioner 4-way.

More recently for my viewing pleasure

Philips 28PW9509 CRT old school tv
Panasonic DVD-S35 dvd player

I'm assuming that things won't have moved on that far at the lower price points in the last 14 years that I'll need to spend a little more to actually hear/see a significant difference.

I'd like to avoid the gajillion boxes problem and I've been missing a tuner for a while so I'm targeting a universal cd/dvd player and a receiver that will be ace at movies and music.

Seems like my only real choice for discs is a Marantz DV7001 dvd and cd player.

Are there other universal disc players worth looking at?

I'm less convinced about full-on multi speaker package as I'm not sure it will add that much to the viewing experience (plus could always incorporate my current Missions as rear/sides). Is multi-speaker really worth it? How would it cope with 'simple' stereo music playback? Can one just switch off the surround speakers for music listening?

Currently thinking just a pair of good floorstanders and a sub e.g. Dali Ikon 6 or Monitor Audio Silver RS6 partnered with either Monitor Audio RSW12 or Velodyne SPL-800i subs.

Bit stuck over choice on an amp now though. If I'm not going for multi-channel speakers I don't neccessarily need a full a/v amp, but would be nice to future proof. Whatever it's got be great at both music and movies...

Any advice/experience gratefully received...

 

[Andrew Everard]

The DV7001 is excellent, and will suit your needs very well indeed. The obvious partnering receiver at this level is the Onkyo TX-SR875, but given the quality of the video upscaling in the Marantz, you probably don't need the Reon upscaler in the 875, so you could go for TX-SR805. This is essentially the same receiver minus the top-whack upscaler, and will save you £200 at £800.

I think a surround system will make a big diference when watching films from DVD, so I'd suggest you go for the RS6s with the matching RSLCR centre speaker and the RSW12 sub, and use your Missions for the rear speakers as you suggest. You could always upgrade the surrounds later, but I think it's worth having the centre speaker for movies, though you could run the system in phantom centre mode, splitting the centre information between the left and right speakers when playing surround soundtracks

The receiver will run in surround when surround material is detected, and can be set to default to stereo, with or without the sub, when playing music in stereo from CDs.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks very much!