A Basic But Complete Cyrus System Setup at £6k

[Sy101]

Very happy with the sound of this setup. A Cyrus CD and tuner + Apple AirPlay & Rega turntable with Spendor A5 speakers and all decent cables / rack and you're not left with much from £6k... Any thoughts advice on what the next upgrade should be would be interesting to hear. What's interesting is how good the turntable sounds...every bit as enjoyable as the CD player...and hell of a lot cheaper too!

To break down the products:

Hi-Fi Separates

Cyrus 6XPd Amplifier £1250

Cyrus CD6 SE CD Player £950

Cyrus DAB 8.0 Tuner £450

Rega RP1 Turntable £200

Spendor A5 Loudspeakers £1695

Accessories

Mains Cables

1 x 1m Chord Company SuperScreen £65

2 x 1m Russ Andrews Classic Powercord £184

Speaker Cable

2m DNM Solid Core Speaker Cable with BFA plugs prof. fitted £53.92

Interconnects

1 x Chord Crimson Plus £36

1 x Russ Andrews Crystal AG -14dB attenuation £300

1 x TCI Coral Optical £31

1 x 0.5m Wireworld Ultraviolet USB Cable £40.45

Hi-Fi Rack

Podium Reference - 4 tiers £450

Apple Airport Express £79

Total System Price £5795

 

[Sy101]

Here are the pictures - available for 60 days - https://files.me.com/simon_hart/qr2wvp

 

[CnoEvil]

IMO There is good synergy between Cyrus and Spendor...have you considered a Cyrus streamer?

 

[Sy101]

Yes I sent it back unfortunately and went for the Apple option (knowing the drop in quality) because there was so many steps in the chain to simply playing / streaming a digital file that my partner didn't want to use it...I also had NAS issues too. Simplicity and iTunes integration won the battle this time....but would love a simple way to play 24bit files. I can't stop using iTunes because my iPad and iPhone syncs to it.

 

[staggerlee]

Why are you thinking of upgrading - why not enjoy what you have , if you are happy with it

 

[True Blue]

Nice set up. If you like the sound leave it alone and invest in the music.

If you do get the upgrade bug, get the performance pack for the REGA

 

[DandyCobalt]

Cartridge on turntable?

Also, quite a few tweeks/upgrades you can make to the Rega - or swap for a P3-24, going quite cheap now.

 

[CnoEvil]

Yes I sent it back unfortunately and went for the Apple option (knowing the drop in quality) because there was so many steps in the chain to simply playing / streaming a digital file that my partner didn't want to use it...I also had NAS issues too. Simplicity and iTunes integration won the battle this time....but would love a simple way to play 24bit files. I can't stop using iTunes because my iPad and iPhone syncs to it.

If at a later date you want to re-visit the streaming option, have a look at the Linn DS solution, which sounds great and can be operated from an iPhone or iPad. Once set up, it's very straightforward to operate.

 

[Sy101]

Thanks everyone. I'm certainly taking the time to enjoy what I have. Possible upgrades could be changing the 6XPd to the 8XPd...buying a Cyrus Power Supply seperate...upgrading the speakers to A6 from A5. The turntable is the least used seperate due to most new music being purchased in digital form and having to change it everytime it stops after a few tracks...but love the sound.

Streaming wise I like the sound of the NAIM products because even the hard drives are hi-fi components and you don't have external NAS issues. If other people are happily using a NAS with iTunes not defaulting back to it's original c drive location and the NAS not needing to be 'woken up' for it to appear....essentially not going through a multitude of hurdles and setup just to play a track then I'd love to hear about it! I did try a Linn Sneaky a while back and at the time, the Twonky Media software wasn't great and I didn't notice much improvement in the sound vs AirTunes. I am a Mac user which sometimes doesn't help...I have iPads and iPhones to sync...having said that, just getting my head round iTunes Match means no more sync'ing since everything is available via the cloud on your device.....but I don't want to be streaming music suffering a quality drop when I own it on the laptop in a top quality AIFF format (not purchased on iTunes)....one day I will find a simple high quality solution....just probably involves spending big money with NAIM or Linn etc!

 

[kevinJ]

That's a great looking system you've got there!

(and your hifi blog is nice too🙂)