Advice needed!

[admin_exported]

About 12 years ago when I was a lot more flush than I am now, I started to put together a decent hi-fi system. I bought a Cyrus amp and Acoustic Energy floorstanders and good quality speaker cables - then the money ran out! I'm still stuck with 'out of the box' interconnects, a 15 year old 'cheap as chips' CD player and no rack.

I'm now in a position to improve the system, but with a small budget (about £400). I have also have a lot of music on my laptop, which sounds pretty dire through the amp. So, can anybody advise what my best options would be? - so far I've come up with:

• Spend the lot on a decent CD player, such as the new NAD C545BEE - or if its really worth the extra, I might stretch to the Cyrus CD6 S, which my local hi-fi shop is pushing out at £500
• Buy a decent DAC, which should improve the quality through the CD player and from the PC.
• Spread the money between the 2 and get the Marantz CD6002 & Cambridge Audio 640P DAC for example

Any help gratefully received.

Thanks

 

[Anonymous]

Pesonally I will never buy another CD player again, put everything onto a hard drive which sounds just as good.

DAC, Tacima929 and decent mains cables will give the biggest improvements for the money I think.

 

[Anonymous]

Try a DAC.

Every home should have one.

 

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't buy another CDP again either. CA DACMagic or Beresfod 7520 DAC fed with lossless music files from PC will not be much different in SQ out of CDPs up to the £1,000 mark. But if you have a lot of music at 128 kps on your PC (even though the DACMagic does upsampling), you may be better off re-ripping them to lossless (or at least 256/320 kps) to get the most out of the DAC. So I would just get a DAC, you may not have to get rid of your existing CDP if it has a digital co-axial output because you can feed that into the DAC too and take advantage of the modern component/circuitry etc.

 

[Anonymous]

Yes, a decent DAC and also an external hard drive for backup. Don't worry about mains cables and the Tacima.

 

[the record spot]

Yep, stick your music on a laptop, leave it running all day long and watch your bills rocket. Scottish Power have a good deal when your kw hours hit the 1200 mark when it goes on to their cheaper rate. Most others are around 4000kw/h.

Ummm, keep the CD67, it's a nice player, if the unit's in good nick for transport purposes, consider a DAC, but I'd look to upgrade the amp. Classique Sounds in Leicester have an Arcam Alpha 10 for £399, Retro Reproduction in Edinburgh an Arcam A80 for £295, the same shop also has a Meridian 551 integrated for £295. All have been well reviewed in their time.

 

[Messiah]

I would agree with the DAC option along with a decent interconnect and a back up system for your files - also ensuring they are of a decent bitrate. It cannot hurt to try the Tacima out as well.

I have just recently sold my Cyrus CD6s in favour of a PC/Ipod based system. What Cyrus amp do you have??

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks guys, but you've muddied the waters for me as I'd never heard of lossless before.

The music on the PC is a bit of a dog's breakfast of formats, but I've now downloaded Media Jukebox and ripped some of my CDs in FLAC - can't say I can tell a lot of difference through the laptp's sound card.

I will definately look into a DAC, probably Dacmagic, but are you really telling me that a CD played on my laptop's CD drive through the dacmagic will sound better than a £500 CD player?